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He is the greatest defence coach in the world, and you can only learn from someone like that.”The pair go back a long way, at least as far as the Great Britain rugby league tour of Australia and Papua New Guinea in 1988, when Ford was a scrum-half on the way to 10 caps, and Larder wasassistant coach. They will be together again with the Lions in New Zealand, with the 40-year-old Ford overseeing the defence of what is generally described as the midweek team. Larder, almost 20 years Ford’s senior, will do the job for the Test side. “I’ve spent a couple of hours each with [fellow midweek team coaches] Ian McGeechan and Gareth Jenkins,” said Ford.

“I’ll be like a sponge, soaking up the advice and the experience.”For now, Ford’s sole focus is Ireland, the Six Nations and, of course, putting one over on his own country. “Any other time, I’d be rooting totally for England,” he said in his broad Lancashire brogue. “Deep down, I’m sure my three sons will be supporting England. The two elder ones are on rugby scholarships with Warrington.

But they were also in Ireland’s dressing room after we beat Scotland, and they really enjoyed that.”Ford would have enjoyed the 40-13 win all the more had it not been for the Scots’ counterattacking try early in the piece, sparked by a break-out from Chris Paterson, which briefly rang alarm bells about Ireland’s defence.There was a measure of d? vu: a few months before Ford’s appointment by Eddie O’Sullivan, a similar score by Pater-son paved the way for an Ireland defeat at Murrayfield which ruined their Grand Slam bid in 2001. Now Ireland are widely fancied.”It used to be Ireland would get ahead and not believe in themselves to finish the job,” Gatland recalled. “Ireland know they can win today, but they’ll have to play more rugby than they did against Scotland, when they kicked a lot and went for territory. The second-biggest roar of the night from the thousands of Milan followers at Old Trafford on Wednesday – the first having acclaimed Hernan Crespo’s winning goal – may have greeted the news that their despised co-tenants had been pegged back to finish 1-1 away to the Champions’ League holders, Porto; but both must be fancied to progress to the quarter-finals, a claim that could also be made on behalf on Italy’s other great force, Juventus, who limited Real Madrid to one disputed goal in Spain.
When it comes to the peculiar dynamics of two-legged football, the Italians seemed to be suggesting that they are once again the real deal: three away fixtures in the Champions’ League and only two goals scored but, critically, only two conceded by teams who know their strengths. Luciano Orquera took over, to no better effect, the fly-half failing once from the tee and once with an attempted drop.Italy might have been 15-6 ahead after the interval; instead they trailed 6-3, which became 18-3 as Paterson chipped away from every distance up to and almost including halfway At the end, Andrea Masi’s try was converted by De Marigny. I hope the pressure of captaincy hasn’t put him off the adventurous rugby.