HISTORY CATEGORISES the Barbarians as everything expressive and expansive in rugby football. But they hardly expanded that reputation in Limerick Friday in a match waist-deep in defensive attitudes; only the closing quarter offering anything in the way of entertainment.

We can see enough of Gaelic football thank you, every weekend on television, and action it is, without having to watch it copied in the oval code, and when we might have expected a collection of creative players to not fear the occasion.

There might have been excuses for the Irish in that they were heading down under the following day and a number of novices out to show credentials for starting berths, but none for a cadre with nothing to lose save image.

Nor did the over-officious referee help by reducing scrums with his schoolboy dictation to front rows who are infinitely more grounded in that aspect of the game, and apparently confusing Marcus Moran to the point of he doubting his inability to scrum any more.

It was a dreadful performance by the Irish, even if they lifted the tempo late in the day and why not with a tour about to set sail.

Despite the experimental starting selection the Green will have to improve considerably on Thomond offering to hope to dinge the All-Blacks this weekend.

No, the Babaas image seems to have changed in line with rugby thinking and been sucked into the win-at-allcosts well; they seemingly forsaken the earlier determination to pay exhibition football which we certainly did not see in Thomond.

Excusable the kicking for touch, and the obvious platform for a try, but could these fixtures refrain from kicking at goal, either from penalty or conversion, and grant the ticket-holders an opportunity of seeing adventurous rugby even at the risk of shedding a few points?

All the 'talk' on television was of the margin, and how close the Irish to the visitors, and absolutely nothing of the entertainment we might have been privy to in what essentially is an invitational fixture with no rewards come the curtain, but rather the satisfaction of pleasing the terraces.

It was a far cry from the epic which featured JPR Williams our own Mike Gibson and Gareth Edwards many moons ago, but then personal memory is inclined to exaggerate the deeds of other days, yet by no stretch of imagination could that performance be exaggerated in any telling, yet a display the Barbarians have not copied but by their brief should strive to repeat.

Then 'progress' has not exactly improved our entertainment, what with the accent on defence and employment of coaches for that department which seemingly does little but to counter any creative attacking.

Unfortunately these days a big score is seen as a slight on the defensive coach, and most of them have long realised that defence is far easier to initiate than invention – signs on it when we watch the World (Soccer) Cup with what I guess will be about one goal per 45 minutes.

However, Thomond was a fitting exit for a tremendous Irish player – Malcolm O'Kelly – who jettisoned the boots after that outing; his call to the Babaas a fitting acknowledgment to a fine innings for Leinster and Ireland.

- PAUL DONAGHY