RugbyTHE COACH with the Midas touch has swiftly delivered a Triple Crown and, one suspects, there's more to follow.

France's 25-13 win over Italy in Rome yesterday means les Bleus must beat Wales by 20 points in next Saturday's fitting finale in Cardiff to deny Wales the title, when a second Grand Slam in four years will also be on offer for the home side.

Meanwhile denial - born out of a desperate desire for self-preservation - reigns in Irish rugby. Yesterday, flanked by his four coaching assistants, Eddie O'Sullivan clung to the theory that Ireland had adopted the right tactics against Wales on Saturday and had lost a tight game that could have gone either way.

"They had one try over 80 minutes, both sides scored four times, except theirs was (included) a try and ours penalties. That was the difference between the teams. Their try came off a turnover," he added, in a familiar lament, as if somehow that's cheating; though not when Ireland scored three tries off turnovers against the Scots.

Perhaps his gullible employers buy this one too. They have form in this regard. But whether in a minority of one or five, it's doubtful anyone else will, the coach having long since lost the rugby public. Judging by the palpable lack of enthusiasm in Ireland's performance, he may have lost the players too.

For next Saturday's dead rubber against England, Brian O'Driscoll's misfortune and projected six-to-eight-week absence will mean a change in captaincy, to Paul O'Connell, and in midfield, where the coach is liable to resist starting Luke Fitzgerald at centre and instead start Shane Horgan inside Andrew Trimble.

Geordan Murphy and Girvan Dempsey could also come back into the equation. But in ruling out scope for experimentation O'Sullivan passed the buck to the IRFU.

"I've always been told, 'Listen, go out and win as many championship games as you can every year. Whatever it takes, get it done. That's the job.' No-one has ever come to me and said, 'See how things go and if you want to throw a few young fellas in, in Twickenham, don't be afraid of it.' You can go down that road but that's not how the IRFU see it and that's absolutely been the case since I've been involved.

"I think you don't make strategic changes in the middle of the championship," he said, even though we're now four-fifths of the way through and out of contention. "You go out and win as many championship games as you can every year," he added, no doubt adhering to his own gut instinct as much as to that of his short-sighted employers.

The blame for this largely wasted campaign starts with the IRFU - and their self-justification in the wake of a dismal World Cup for the crassly premature decision to award the coach a handsome four-year contract extension.

By contrast, the Welsh RFU showed some leadership after the World Cup and their rejuvenation already demonstrates the effects a new regime can have, all the more so with one headed by someone sufficiently secure in his own skin to take on top-class assistants and listen to them rather than perceive them as threats.

Whether with or without Shaun Edwards (who, after all, was not with Warren Gatland in Galwegians, Connacht, Ireland or Waikato and has had his time with Wales limited by his duties with Wasps), success has continually followed the former All Black hooker. Together though, and along with Rob Howley, they are clearly some team. Saturday's Triple Crown augments six major trophies at Wasps and Waikato's NPC triumph. A lucky coach for the sixth time out of six. Some going. Some luck.

Like all of Gatland's teams, Wales were highly motivated, played with palpable enthusiasm and had clear conviction in what they were doing. One stat stood out: Wales made 147 passes to Ireland's 75.

In perhaps the supreme irony, when O'Sullivan became Gatland's assistant coach, Ireland shifted from a forward-driven to a backs-orientated game, but on Saturday, Ireland juxtaposed into a team from the dim and distant past, playing a depressingly narrow, constrained, forwards-orientated game, whereas Wales were the ones who played with width and wit. What goes around comes around?

Maintaining Ireland "didn't want an end-to-end, touchline-to-touchline game" O'Sullivan admitted "we played a very direct game" and said given they went 6-0 up "I don't have any problems with the way we played the game."

Ireland started with seven Munstermen at home to a team backboned by Ospreys players, but if Munster were at home to the Welsh region they would believe they were better while playing a high-tempo game and certainly one with more variety.

There are also plenty of ways to reduce the risks of turnovers and turn the screw on opponents aside from the maul and close-in target runners. The die was cast from the very start and strategy seemingly set in stone - not once did Ireland opt for off-the-top ball and use Andrew Trimble, Shane Horgan or David Wallace up the middle. Ireland were like a bad Italy in disguise. By contrast, Wales chose off-the-top ball save on throw-ins close to their line.

Lacking obvious pride, passion or a Plan B, Ireland were predictable and pedantic. Wales looked much the better-coached team, whereas Ireland looked as if coached by fear of defeat; a fear transmitted from the coach to the players. By the end, it was as if the Irish had been made believe their Welsh counterparts were better. That took some doing.

Whether O'Driscoll has lost his pace over the first few yards, constrained by Ireland's tactics and typical of a desire to try to bail Ireland out of trouble, he kicked too much.

Yet not once did Ronan O'Gara hit him with a skip pass into the outside channel as of yore. In the end, O'Driscoll tore a hamstring as he single-handedly tried to work a trademark turnover at the breakdown amid a swarm of red shirts, the third time he has done this. The sight of the distraught skipper, the figurehead of this golden generation, acted as a metaphor for Ireland's day. Saturday had an eerie and sad end-of-era feel to it.

He's had his big days, and good campaigns in the Six Nations, in the autumn and in summer tours, but O'Sullivan has clearly taken the golden generation as far as he can and looks incapable of building a new team now that the ravages of time and injury have taken their toll.

Maybe O'Sullivan can yet ride off into the sunset with a fifth successive win over England, but either way Ireland are desperately in need of a Kidney transplant, a Matt gloss, a White wash or a Howard's way. Pretty much anything other than a continuation of this horribly drawn-out endgame.