The Calm...

"So it's that time again; the team has been mulled over, the fly-half debate has polarised us, those without ferry tickets have booked their seats in the local, and the butterflies begin. In our heads, the voice of bitter experience tells us to expect little, to enjoy the moment, to be philosophical. But deep in our hearts breathes a dream of the impossible, and it just won't go away. It is our hearts laid bare, it is our Heaven and our Hell, but still they tell us, it's only a game. And a game with stupid-shaped balls, at that. What do they know?"

I wrote the above for Gwl@d's front page, the day before 6N kick-off in 2002. I haven't yet found better way to express how these few days always feel. A little more than 24 hours after I typed the above, Ireland put a half-century of points past Wales to end Graham Henry's shift at the wheel. I remember still feeling numb as I typed;

"The home crowd's joy carried overtones of disbelief, but the aftershock of this result in Wales can only be fearfully imagined. Wales were quite simply atrocious, and finding the will to carry on will be enough of a challenge for the coaches and the team, let alone the transformation required to rescue yet another Six Nations crisis."

and positively undead while responding, weeks later, to England's emulation of the feat:

"There is not much more to say about England's frankly ridiculous superiority. Wales gave it pretty much everything, but not only weren't they good enough, they weren't even on Planet Good Enough. It's less painful - but ultimately more wounding - because it's not a surprise."

Six years, a few more stuffings, and an increasingly incongruous Grand Slam later, and fear of another dose of that unpalatable (not to mention ineffective) medicine leaves a knot in the stomach. But next to it is that other knot, the red one, the one that hopes, and dreams, and reaches out of the stomach for the heart. It gets you every time. It tells you that this year, this time, it'll be different. And no matter how many times it is wrong, we remember the times it was right. That is our curse, our blessing, and our battle-cry as we head for the pub, the bus... or the away dressing room.