{"id":300637,"date":"2026-02-16T09:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300637\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T09:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T09:02:08","slug":"dan-sheehan-enjoys-bus-trip-before-rob-kearney-conor-murray-and-peter-omahony-jump-ship-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/300637\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Sheehan enjoys bus trip before Rob Kearney, Conor Murray and Peter O\u2019Mahony jump ship \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSeventy to 80 per cent of households in Wales<\/a> watch when we play in the Six Nations<\/a>,\u201d Sam Warburton told Gabby Logan before Sunday\u2019s game got under way in Cardiff. By the 15th minute, by which point France<\/a> had scored their third try, you had to conclude that the 20 to 30 per cent might have been the lucky ones. <\/p>\n

With a fair chunk of our own rugby-loving folk feeling a bit gloomy doomy of late, it\u2019s worth remembering that there\u2019s always someone else worse off. True, it\u2019s no consolation at all, but still, no harm in noting it.<\/p>\n

It was 54-12 to France in the end<\/a>, a record win for them in Cardiff, Wales\u2019s 13th successive Six Nations defeat played in front of the lowest non-Covid-era Six Nations crowd at the Principality Stadium. \u201cI think aspects of it went quite well for Wales, actually,\u201d said Sam at full-time, an observation that left Martin Johnson chewing his lip.<\/p>\n

But Mack Hansen<\/a> might have appreciated that effort to look on the bright side. \u201cIrish people can be quite negative,\u201d he told Tommy Tiernan on Saturday night, the fella at a loss to understand \u201cthis weird narrative\u201d around the Irish team. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be one thing if we\u2019d lost half our games throughout the year, but I\u2019ve played 30 games and I\u2019ve won 26 \u2013 when is that ever heard of, especially in Irish rugby? We win and it\u2019s like, \u2018yeah but, they weren\u2019t great, were they?\u2019 But we\u2019re still beating good teams \u2013 maybe not as silky and clean as before, but those games are hard to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DoDo you recognise this man? A clean-shaven Mack Hansen on The Tommy Tiernan Show <\/p>\n

(Just a brief side note here, that isn\u2019t, admittedly, one of the weekend\u2019s chief rugby talking points: Since he discarded that moustache, Mack looks in or around 12 years younger, so let that be a lesson to those of you with a penchant for facial hair.)<\/p>\n

Mack, incidentally, didn\u2019t have good news for those eager to see him back in a Connacht and Ireland shirt some time soon \u2013 his foot injury will keep him out for months yet. How did it happen? \u201cI wish I had a good story for you,\u201d he told Tommy. \u201cLike it was a shark bite, or something to do with saving someone.\u201d But he just stood on another lad\u2019s foot and damaged his own.<\/p>\n

Once again, then, his Irish comrades had to make do without him on Saturday, him being part of an injury list the length of your arm, but the talk from the camp was they were hell-bent on burying the memory of that mullering in Paris by seeing off the Italians. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou can see town is buzzing,\u201d Dan Sheehan told Virgin Media before the game. \u201cThe bus journey in, you could see everyone giving us best wishes \u2013 which is sometimes hard to see in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, a siege mentality of that class can, of course, work wonders, as Peter O\u2019Mahony would no doubt agree. But having been on Dan\u2019s side of the fence for 13 years, here he was in his media seat in the Virgin Media studios. <\/p>\n

\"SioneSione Tuipulotu celebrates making wallies of pundits after Scotland’s win over England in the Six Nations. Photograph: David Rogers\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cYou said, \u2018if I don\u2019t like it, I\u2019ll never do it again\u2019,\u201d Joe Molloy revealed. By full-time, after a game that would have stretched any souls\u2019s nerves to breaking point<\/a>, Peter had the look of a man who would have preferred to have been tending to his pansies and cyclamen back home. \u201cMy heart-rate is just coming down,\u201d he said after Italy nearly did a job on Ireland. <\/p>\n

But his work wasn\u2019t done \u2013 next up: Scotland v England. <\/p>\n

Peter: \u201cI don\u2019t think Scotland have what it takes to beat that England side at the moment … I think England have too much class for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conor Murray: \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll threaten England too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob Kearney: \u201cI agree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Half-time: Scotland 24, England 10. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s mad,\u201d said Joe. \u201cIt is,\u201d said Rob. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing quite like the Scots to make wallies of Virgin pundits.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAre you all sticking with England,\u201d asked Joe. Rob, Peter and Conor: \u201cWe\u2019re jumping ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s as well, because otherwise they\u2019d have needed a life raft, England going down 31-20<\/a>. As Scott Hastings put it over on ITV of the game Nick Mullins described as \u201ca tale of the unexpected\u201d, \u201cit\u2019s like having an extra Hogmanay to celebrate\u201d. And probably only 1 per cent of Scottish households watched it for fear of witnessing their boys suffering savagery on the lines of a shark attack. <\/p>\n

The fear now, of course, is that an indignant England will sink their jaws into our boys next weekend. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSeventy to 80 per cent of households in Wales watch when we play in the Six Nations,\u201d Sam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[13919,65851,59241,1452,61,60,1449,56672,75784,15551,112,907,92456],"class_list":{"0":"post-300637","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-conor-murray","9":"tag-dan-sheehan","10":"tag-england-rugby","11":"tag-france-rugby","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-ireland-rugby","15":"tag-mack-hansen","16":"tag-scotland-rugby","17":"tag-six-nations","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-virgin-media","20":"tag-wales-rugby"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}