The crescendo builds

The Irish sacked Britain last week. Ten winners laid waste to Cheltenham and a last minute try created a Triple Crown at... Twickenham. Both were record tallies and both represented return on investment that had been building to a crescendo. The bleak autumn has passed.
Investment is obviously the key thing here as the horse racing industry is propped up with the best exchequer funding with almost one in three of every tax euro spent on sport going to the industry. It's clear to see how the money is returning success, but the investment in the rugby team is a bit less tangible and just a tad more organic since it seems to have been in the players.
For the rugby team this could be a step on the road to deliverance, likewise given the fractured nature of the rugby season the momentum can easily dissipate. Might it mean no more than our most recent Triple Crown, or does the Triple Crown even represent something worthy? On these pages last week Roy Keane spoke of getting so far and everyone's a hero. “You need that winning mentality, which we've lacked as a country for a long time”. After the game the captains of the team O'Driscoll and O'Connell both independently spoke of this being a signpost, a watershed and not really enough. They both talked the Grand Slam talk. The message is filtering through.
The manner of victory is also quite important. The missed kicks from O'Gara didn't stop him creating the last minute winner with a brilliant dink over the defence; Horgan kept his nerve twice, once to recycle and once again to score; Stringer made the call to keep the ball and O‘Driscoll twice had the ball in hands breaking tackles and causing mayhem. Here was a team try at the death with the players free to call it and do it. If this is the new Ireland O'Sullivan can take a lot of credit for understanding the modern player a good bit more than we had previously thought him capable of. Maybe the maelstrom of Paris gave birth to a new creation. The below par performances of some were encouraging in a perverse way.
England, before they eventually destroyed Ireland at Lansdowne Road to win a Grand Slam for Clive Woodward, had a comedic habit of blowing their final game of the season to avoid glory. Over recent seasons Ireland too have mostly fallen short in one game a season – though two defeats last season was a poor return. The point is that if a peak is coming it's coming at precisely the right moment. A campaign next year with away games in Cardiff and Murrayfield suddenly looks less inviting than in many recent seasons but confidence is a useful panacea to inspire confidence.
The sheer joy in the aftermath showed that this meant something different to the group of players in the squad. They had been pilloried for the France 50 minute shambles, had been abused in the autumn as hired-goons for the missing O'Driscoll and O'Connell and now had been part of history. Jose Mourinho's Chelsea team celebrate every victory together on the pitch and despite recent wobbles have still been the most successful team in England over two seasons. The last Triple Crown was delivered after a poor game at home in bleak conditions against one of the worst Scottish teams ever to play in the Championship. It was an all-over anti-climax. This was under lights, before a record television audience on RTÉ and in the corner in London. It's very possible success can be addictive.
O'Sullivan may indeed be learning. Maybe the players are more trustworthy than he first thought, maybe they've assumed responsibility post-Lions. Certainly it seems like failure on the Lions tour has done no end of good to most of Ireland's players. For your inspirational arrogance Sir Clive we salute you. Now after the celebrations comes the pressure to step it up and O'Sullivans' response will be interesting. Do you go south in the summer with exactly the same team and nurse it through to the World Cup, or should we now see what the rest of the squad is made of? The bench still looks like a bit of a joke designed to placate Ulster rather than pressuring the team into improvement. It's all getting better by degrees but a Grand Slam requires a bit more. At least now everyone knows and believes that only a Grand Slam will do justice to this team's talent. Still Flannery and Horgan and Leamy are names we'll always remember from the battle of Twickers. Whoo-bah.