Sunday

The time was 3.30am before I finally turned the lights out. It takes a while to shut down the system after an evening kick-off and, besides, how could you rest easy after that? I spent an hour or so in the team room late on, eating Nutella sandwiches and chatting with Wally and Strings, trying to make sense of it all. We couldn’t.

I felt fit, strong and focused on the day of the game. I think everyone did. We were well-prepared. I know for certain there was no lack of focus. We didn’t underestimate Namibia. It just didn’t happen for us, all over the park. How do you explain it when there’s a ball passed to you, chest high, out in front, and you deck it? And we all did it. There’s no figuring that out.

I remember watching Ireland playing in Twickenham in 2000 when they kept the ball through 17 phases but made a net yardage of minus 20 metres. When you see that, you know that is a team with a problem. We don’t have those problems but tonight, we couldn’t even get through the phases to test their defence because we kept making the sort of mistakes none of us makes 364 days of the year.

It’s not good that the Namibians blitzed our maul once or twice. Our mauling was ordinary enough in the warm-up games also so we need to seal things off better. We’ll work hard on that. But mostly you’re talking about fellas putting balls on the floor. And nobody was going for outlandish passes either. It was baffling.

There were only a few instances when we got beyond three or four phases. One of them was when Rog put a ball across me and Leams went through a hole. That’s the sort of thing that happens against the so-called weaker teams when you keep the ball for a while and test their defensive patterns. It doesn’t need to be anything amazing, sometimes just someone running a hard decoy line. But we didn’t even get to that stage in the second half.

I admired the Namibians. They had a couple of very good players. But I wasn’t ever worried we were going to lose. What I did realise was that we weren’t implementing the plan, which was to get the ball and hold on to it.

The dressing room was dead afterwards. How can you put a positive spin on that? We could have said, ‘At least we’ve got it out of our system now.’ We already used that one during the warm-up matches. At the same time this is the only way we can look at it. Silence all the way back on the team bus. It was as if we had lost.

I went over to the casino beside our hotel with a few of the lads for half an hour, played a bit of roulette, anything to make the hours pass till the body was ready to sleep. I did sleep; but not with an easy mind.

Monday

Eleven o’clock is video-time and this one is rated XXX. Normally this wouldn’t happen so soon after a game but Eddie clearly reckons it needs to be done and he’s right. He just shows us a compilation of all the turnovers, all 38 of them, one after the other. This is a ‘down day’ but I suppose he just wanted to reinforce an idea before we go back to work tomorrow: This can’t happen again.

After that it was a dip in the pool for anyone who had played, weights and rugby fitness for those who didn’t. We had the afternoon and evening free — you can’t do too much work the day after a game. Fellas did different things. I headed off to the beach at Lacanau with Stringer, Wally, Isaac Boss, Neil Best, Stephen Ferris, Neil Best and Jerry Flannery. It was a welcome escape, to be honest. We went and bought two frisbees for ¤15, a bat-ball game and a soccer ball. Both frisbees wee soon lost out to sea but we had a good penalty contest. Then we stretched out, read books, listened to iPods and had some pizza. It was great crack.

I know there’s a conspiracy theory out there that we’re cooped up in our hotel on the outskirts of Bordeaux. I can’t say it’s registered with me. Even if we were in the heart of Bordeaux, this afternoon would still have been my first chance to go out and do something. I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve often stuff to do in the evenings such as lineout work on computers. It’s not a cultural trip, as I’ve said before. I suppose maybe it’s been a bit tough for the guys who haven’t been in the 22 but it hasn’t registered with me.

That said, I enjoyed the beach trip. You’ve got your own clothes on, none of the official gear, doing your own thing. We were spotted by a few Irish supporters but they were pretty nice. I’m not sure what they might have been saying the previous night but nobody had a cut off us here.

I’m sure there’s been plenty of criticism in the media. Fair enough. The media can’t say we’re playing well if we’re not. Some people would be very conscious of it. It honestly doesn’t bother me. I’m around long enough. I was on the Lions where I was getting murdered right, left and centre.

I’m more concerned about what we can do to rectify matters. The mood is still pretty glum by the evening, when the beach boys all go for dinner in the Hippopotamus restaurant across from the hotel. We need to get back on the pitch as soon as possible. Training should be lively in the morning.

Tuesday

Sure enough, there is a bit of an edge to training, with guys getting stuck into each other. That’s the way it’s been for the past few weeks but it’s reassuring nonetheless.

It was good to have some contact again. The other conspiracy theory, I’m told, is that we’ve been flogged in training. I’ve actually felt the need for contact. There’s less need for it in the Six Nations because we’ve already been battle-hardened with our provinces.

This is media day and I’m asked a few times for my explanation of what happened on Sunday. I’m still none the wiser. We saw another video this afternoon, at a luncheon hosted by the IRFU. This time, the sequence was not our errors against Namibia but all of our scores from last season’s autumn Tests and Six Nations. It was a timely reminder of what we can do when things are right.

We watched Argentina v Georgia in the evening. I really thought the Georgians were going to do us a favour when they were only 6-3 down at half-time. It was a great performance by them and a lot different from what we expected. They had a well organised lineout, scrummed quite well and their commitment was excellent, especially early on when Argentina took them on close in. It would have been nice if they had denied Argentina the bonus but it’s not as though we were counting on it.

Wednesday

Lineouts in the morning, weights and video analysis in the afternoon — we’ve quite a bit of footage on the Georgians from the Nations Cup in Bucharest during the summer.

Then a real taste of France, literally. Paddy O’Flynn is a friend of my dad who lives near Saint Emilion and he drove me over there in the evening. It’s beautiful. The village is Unesco-listed — every building, every vineyard. There are 92 wine shops for a population of only 2,500. You’d never know Simon Best’s present to the squad was a Lonely Planet guide to France, would you?

Paddy’s friend Régis Moro took us around his vineyard, Le Vieux Chateau Champs de Mars, showing how the microclimate in one corner of the vineyard can produce a wine that costs ¤600 on the shelves, while another produces ¤20 bottles. The cuvee prestige comes from the oldest vines, which are between 60 and 100 years old. Regis called it Johanna after his grand-daughter. He gave me a bottle to take home. It will have to be a special occasion to open it.

Back at Paddy’s house, he opened a bottle of 1989 vintage. I was shown how to smell and taste it, then to compare it for colour, texture and taste with a bottle 10 years younger. My palate is pretty uneducated but but it was interesting.

All this happened over a leisurely six-course meal, which was quite a contrast from our normal evening nosh-up. When you get 10 hungry rugby players around a table, manners go out the window. This was far more civilised, and barely a word about rugby. Sometimes that can be good.

Thursday

A quiet day. Training went well in the afternoon at Stade Bordelais, in particular the work we did on attack. The plan against Georgia is to cut out the 50-50 off-loads to make sure we keep the ball for longer periods. That’s the best way to wear down teams like Georgia. Our fitness is better than theirs so you tire them out by taking them through the phases. I know it sounds like a broken record but that’s what we need to do and it’s what we didn’t do against Namibia.

We make our own fun in the evening. A simple kick-around between Jerry Flannery and Rog in the team room soon became a full-developed sport with precise rules and interpretations — football tennis. It involves two players, a soccer ball, a couch as the net and the court delineated with masking tape on the carpet.

We were at it the whole evening. Geordan Murphy was head and shoulders above everyone else. Jerry was disgusted to lose both his games. He really fancies himself as a soccer player.

Friday

Very little work today. I did half an hour of skills out the back of the hotel with Brian McLaughlin, alongside Neil Best, Jerry and Donncha, then went back to bed. It’s great having all the games on the box and I’ve been watching a fair bit. I particularly enjoyed the USA v Tonga game from Wednesday and today, I watched a repeat of Scotland v Portugal, where I spotted Diogo Mateus, formerly of Munster.

I couldn’t believe the way England went about trying to play South Africa. Afterwards, Martin Corry said they wanted to bully the Springboks around the fringes. Of course, you want to engage the opposing pack in a battle but nobody would target the South African back row as a supposed weakness. Genetically, they are just huge men. They lap up physical confrontation. England were a bit unlucky with their injury problems but they couldn’t cope with South Africa’s kicking game either. That killed them.

That match wasn’t over till nearly 11 French time but I stayed up reading till two to get my ‘game clock’ right.