But I can tell you that nostalgia for old stadiums is an entirely finite emotion. It lasts until you put your first foot in the new place, not one second longer. Two seasons ago, Leicester Tigers contemplated a move from their old home at Welford Road to the gleaming, even futuristic Walkers Stadium, a few hundred yards down the road.
The city took up arms. Leicester fans besieged the club, the website and the local papers, expressing a fierce loyalty to their traditional home and maintaining that wild horses would need to be hitched to drag them elsewhere.
The Leicester players, mindful of the appealingly claustrophobic feel of the old place, and of the wonderful results they had enjoyed there, were also resistant to the move. It was shelved. “But suddenly, when we walked back into Welford Road for the start of the new season, we all thought, ‘What the hell are we doing back at this old dump?’ ” one very senior Leicester player told me.
One toenail in Croke Park next year and nostalgia will become as much a part of Irish rugby history as the post-wrecking ball Lansdowne Road and, significantly, of the quaint, ancient and now supplanted notion of good defeats.
While being at a rugby match is always nice and even essential, while the atmosphere and camaraderie of the big Test matches are not to be missed, there are rare times when it is quite wonderful to be watching on television in your lounge. For me, one of those rare occasions came last Sunday, when by all accounts the weather was lashing the old stadium to within an inch of its life.
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Avoiding the risk of exposure was only one reason. Television delivers a close-up of the demeanour and bearing of players that is not always available to those in the stands and terraces. The demeanour of the Ireland team before the game against Australia was spectacularly striking. They were focused, not tense. They were confident. For heaven’s sake, even against such illustrious opposition, they expected to win.
Until very recently, celebrations after any Irish victory were inevitably shot through with an air of disbelief and shock. Last Sunday, clearly, the victory had come as no surprise. It is a change of attitude that speaks volumes. If exhortations by their followers to bring on the All Blacks were decidedly premature, then Ireland certainly has a right to consider itself, on form, the second-best rugby team in the world.
Significantly, there are attitudes and technical matters that have served Ireland (or haunted them, more like) for so long, but which are no longer good enough. Both Ireland and Munster followers have always tended to rate players because they were hard and fierce. It was enough for years for those two teams to have a hero such as Anthony Foley barrelling the ball up the middle. Whatever they paid that warrior, it was not enough. When Foley and, say, Lawrence Dallaglio went head to head, we found that both were roughly as tough as each other.
But it got Ireland only so far, you see. When power cancelled out power, when team cancelled out team, Dallaglio had the extra elements. He was quicker, he could offload, he had an aura, he had a tactical nous that could change the game. Such differences were the reason England, usually, just won and Ireland just lost.
Last week, it seemed to me that the extra edges have now arrived in the team, in a variety of locations. For many years, not even his best friends could deny that Ronan O’Gara played so far back as to render himself liable to an invoice for a season ticket in the stand behind the posts. His dragging forward has been a little tortuous. But the continuity is undeniable. He first arrived at a position where he could play in the traffic. By last week, he was absolutely dancing in the traffic. Compare the footballing solidity but also attacking edges of the O’Gara/O’Driscoll/D’Arcy midfield with, say, the Hodgson/Allen/Noon midfield for England.
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Compare it, in terms of execution, even with the Carter/Nonu/Mauger combination for New Zealand and, for me, you still have the Irish out ahead.
O’Gara, now he has moved forward to such remarkable effect, has to stay there. He has to stay there throughout the 2007 Six Nations and the World Cup, and back himself on days when everything is going wrong. Those days will come. But in the midfield and in other areas of the team, Ireland have forsaken more than 100 years of being only a holding operation.
Neither have I any doubt as to the springboard. The performance of Isaac Boss, coming in for a rare outing under pressure and in filthy conditions, was stunning. Imperfect, and stunning. For the first time in years, a back row playing against Ireland had to wait before it spread out. Boss mixed up his game to superb effect. He even kicked.
Where now, apart from Croke Park? Naturally, the words Grand and Slam must be proscribed in the Irish squad and nation until at least the middle of March (some hopes). Wales might, just, be together soon enough to be very dangerous in February in Cardiff.
And the fact still remains that this finest Irish run of results in history would be regarded as mediocrity for some world nations.
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Remaining weaknesses? Obviously, a scrum that, chillingly, was bullied by the maggot-powered Aussie front row. The lack of a genuine openside flanker, which will hurt them the higher they go; the lack of consistency in a flighty back three. Significant, but not terminal.
From where I sat last Sunday, it seemed that the transition in Irish rugby is far more than a few removal vans chugging across the city of Dublin. There is a profound change that threatens to demolish a historical culture of what can only be called near-achievement.
Formerly, a bad year would be Ireland failing to win the odd boots-and-saddles match. This time, the season will be regarded as mediocre if Ireland do not win the Grand Slam.
And the final confirmation? They can play when it’s howling and raining, but by choice they’d have it still and dry. Never mind about pigs flying. So are the Irish.