The prospect of working up the Six Nations table in reverse order is altogether too depressing. Not with regard to the Italians at the bottom, you understand. If the team who have gone 14 games without a championship win had learnt by therapy less masochistic than self-imposed fines - all proceeds to charity - how to keep 15 players on the field, they would have risen like a cork past the Welsh.
Brad Johnstone would be the toast of Milan, rather than a coach sifting through job applications, the most attractive of which would appear to be the one bearing the motif of the Munster branch. Without wishing to be disrespectful of the Irish determination to coach themselves by themselves, big Brad could be as good for Munster as Warren Gatland is currently being for Wasps. New Zealand coaches have their place in the European game, but that brings me all too soon to, ah, the Welsh. Sorry, can't face it for the moment. I shall need to gather myself.
So, forgive me for skipping from the travails of Italy - too much Diego Dominguez and not enough discipline - to the filling in the Six Nations sandwich. Ireland beat the three teams below them with as much ease as it is possible to generate without being elevated into the top bracket, as occupied by France and England.
Ireland aspire to be a crust. The filling wants out. That is why they discarded Gatland last autumn and went for the native Munstermen, Eddie O'Sullivan and Declan Kidney. Ireland want to purr in the finest company, not merely give them a game. They began their campaign by putting 50 points on Wales... no, no, too soon.
But without Gatland's supervision of the forwards, the Irish pack has literally and steadily gone backwards. They ended their season in Paris on the wrong end this time of a near half-century. The problem remains the same as always. They cannot play with Mick Galwey; they cannot play without the old second row.
Scotland had no problems with their forwards. Well, I suppose there are always ways of improving things, but the Scots churned out more than enough ball to keep a set of backs happy. Scott Murray did his usual trick of out-jumping everything in sight, which probably doesn't best please his employers at Saracens, who could do with a bit of bread-and-butter possession at the moment.
But if Ireland creaked up front, the Scots created very little behind the scrum. Oh, they managed to cobble enough together to beat Italy and Wales - damn, premature again - but these bumpy late-in-the-game victories suggest not so much that Gregor Townsend was a mercurial genius, but that Scotland were a wee bit fitter than the Italians and the Welsh. In fact, Gregor, ever since he became bigger and stronger, while on French leave with Brive and Castres, and historical, as Scotland's very own most capped player, has been anything but mesmeric.
The player who once could not be tied down by coaching convention or opposition defences has discovered orthodoxy. Perhaps it comes with the history. Or perhaps it is simply the lack of pace outside. But until Scotland import a few tartan Kiwis who can sprint - or, heaven forbid, grow a few of their own - Gregor may opt for safety rather than the one-man meanderings that no longer guarantee anything but bruised ribs.
England took most of the season off. They probably didn't mean to, but somewhere deep in their devotion to professionalism and progress there is an override switch that kicks in when the tank approaches empty. The problem for England is that every time they look back on the damage both physical and mental inflicted by the Lions tour of last summer, the French hail their own, equally gruelling tour to South Africa and New Zealand as a point of restart.
As the Lions were losing in Australia - or just before - France were drawing a two-match series in South Africa and losing in New Zealand. Hardly romance ablaze. But Fabien Galthié as captain and Bernard Laporte as coach finally got through to the players. They needed to put the team first. The French, deeply conscious of their volatility, have always had a code that preaches respect. But under Galthié they went beyond paying lip service to the credo. France became a team that burnt with desire, that embraced discipline, because good discipline would help the team performance.
Out of discipline came brilliance. Not the other way round. That is why Laporte so despises the casual reference to French flair. It has to be worked on as hard as scrummaging. Harder. It is there, make no mistake, as was shown against Ireland, but is a product that does not come in easy verse but with the sweat of rolling steel.
England lost to France. Exhausted, stale England failed to win the grand slam. Again. But this is no time to sack everyone in sight. They went through the motions to beat everyone comfortably, and the showdown at the Stade de France in Paris was by a comfortable distance the best game - for standard of play, not drama - that has been seen in the professional age.
Will England be brave enough to take a rest? Or will they go for the Gallic work ethos? Sounds strange, doesn't it? Not at all French. Let's hope Clive Woodward comes up with something that is totally un-English. The revolution must not stall now.
Which leads us to the Welsh. At last. The current crisis has nothing to do with an average side playing badly, or even with their coach. Steve Hansen is fine. This has everything to do with politics. Unless Welsh rugby sweeps away its politics of cosy backscratching then it is doomed. The leaders of the Welsh Rugby Union must go. There, got there in the end.
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