The French are obviously keen not to let go of the memories of their outstanding performances in the knockout stages of the World Cup. On entering the magnificent pressroom at Stade de France last Sunday, this column decided to grab a statistics sheet in a pigeonhole. Imagine the surprise when instead of the French and Ireland teams and a little relevant data on the clash, this column was confronted with two A4 pages containing the French and Argentinian teams for last year's World Cup quarter-final at Lansdowne Road.

Not quite cricket to remind sensitive Irish souls of perhaps one of the biggest disappointments in the history of Irish rugby, but we had our revenge later.