O'Driscoll plays the diplomat firmly in the centre

THERE'S ONLY one subject in the air and even yesterday's pre-match press conference before the Ireland-Fiji game was dominated by le main de Dieu.

Brian O'Driscoll did not go so far as to brand Thierry Henry a cheat, but the manner in which Wednesday's World Cup play-off was decided clearly rankled.

"I suppose if you go by rule books essentially it is cheating," said O'Driscoll, before tempering his response. "Plenty of sportsmen along the way have bent the rules in their favour. I saw in the punditry afterwards Graeme Souness saying that every footballer has reacted that way. You saw Kevin Doyle say that if he had the opportunity he probably would have done something similar.

"It was probably the second touch that was the one that irked everyone. It's one thing trying to control it, but then keeping it in play with the second palm was the one that really got to everyone. So, I don't know, it's open to interpretation as to whether it was cheating or whether it was bending the rules to the extreme."

Asked if Henry's handball was an instinctive act, O'Driscoll said: "I think you'd have to ask him. I'm sure it probably was. He was trying to do whatever he could to win the game, but I couldn't answer that for him, whether it was instinctive or not or whether he thought maybe the first one was instinctive and the second one: 'Well, I've gone this far, I might as well try and push it another bit'."

He texted Damien Duff soon after. "I just texted Duffer, just after the game, just saying what a privilege it was to watch a performance like that and how they'd done everyone proud. It's just a shame that it wasn't rewarded the way it should have been."

The nearest comparison in a rugby context was undoubtedly the finale to the 2002 Heineken Cup final, and the so-called "Hand of Back" or "Backhander", when Neil Back flicked Peter Stringer's arm as he fed Munster's final attacking scrum of the match.

"Neil Back certainly bent the rules in his favour and again there was a huge amount discussed about it. It's certainly pushing the boundaries; for some people it was pushing it too far, for others it was all part of the game."