Where now for Welsh rugby? After all the promise of recent months it was blown seriously off course on a near impossibly cold Sunday in Ireland.

The streets of Dublin were mercifully free of screaming, shouting, bawling Welsh fans on the morning after the night before, all sleeping it off, but for those sober enough the inquest continued on the trek home.

'That was a hell of a revival' observed one acidly. 'We'll get murdered at Twickenham,' and 'Not back to watching that rubbish' were some of the more printable comments.

The Irish newspapers, meanwhile, had a ball. Very bad, shambles, vulnerable, were some of the more tempered reactions about Wales' performance.

They also reasoned accurately enough that the Six Nations has become a three-tier championship with England and France at the top, themselves in the middle, with Wales, Scotland and Italy bringing up the rear.

What was so unacceptable from a Welsh point of view was the almost complete lack of challenge after all that had happened against better opposition in the World Cup.

Ireland simply drove Wales off the pitch via the line-outs and there was little defence against some pretty basic back play from the hosts. Wales in reply badly lacked direction, content to pass the ball around - when they had it - but going nowhere fast.

It came to something when Tom Shanklin, hardly a front line player, showed his teammates the way when he went on as a second half replacement.

The incomparable Brian O'Driscoll didn't have to be at his best to embarrass Wales.

He was merely teasing the Welsh media at the launch of the RBS Six Nations in London recently hinting at a possible move to Wales.

O'Driscoll coming to Llanelli? That's about as likely as a sober Welshman in Dublin, especially if stories in Ireland are to be believed about the steps being taken to keep him there.

A new salary hike to £200,000 a year, the Irish captaincy and other benefits are widely suggested.

The decision to redevelop Lansdowne Road rather than build a new stadium and the possible demise of Connacht as a region are being touted as possible sacrifices to find the money to keep O'Driscoll in Ireland.

Don't let David Moffett or anyone else complain about over-inflated salaries paid to players in Wales or to those about to arrive when a generous benefactor like Tony Brown is hovering.

But I don't subscribe to those who are blaming coach Steve Hansen for the shellacking at the hands of Ireland. He was still mystified at the Welsh performance when we spoke at the airport yesterday.

No-one complained about the creativity of the Welsh backs after the World Cup and Scotland and most thought he'd strengthened the pack for Ireland. It's the players who let everyone down.

Hansen can tinker - he can reinstate Duncan Jones, he can start with Shanklin and Ceri Sweeney, he can recall Colin Charvis - but it's really down to the team to atone for the mess of Dublin.

No such worries for the Irish who are in full flow again. I've been there 20 times now and the problem with - or maybe the beauty of - the Irish is they all think they're James Joyce, so much so that whether they're describing a rugby match or a Shakespeare play they rapidly become so lost in their own grammar that they disappear up their posteriors - a bit like Ben Breeze playing for the Dragons. Only joking, Ben.

But none of the Irish excesses excuses the description used by one Irish hack to reply to the great Gerald Davies as he was thanking RBS for hosting a superb eve of match media dinner in Dublin Bay on Saturday night.

Talking of the Dragons, I've never known a team called so many different names - Newport Dragons by members of the flat earth society, Newport Gwent Dragons by the more realistic, Gwent Dragons by those from the Valleys who are increasingly supportive, Dragons who just want simplicity and Davey's Dragons by media colleagues (and sometimes coach Mike Ruddock) particularly if things are not going too well.

The Dragons also can't let it slip now after climbing to within touching distance of the top of the Celtic League. Ulster at Rodney Parade on Saturday night is a must win game to get back on course after the setback against Neath-Swansea Ospreys.

The usual suspects among the Welsh media are saying the Dragons could still come last of the Welsh teams in the Celtic League and miss out on Heineken Cup qualification despite being 17 points ahead of the Ospreys last week.

One of the Dragons' problems is a fairly threadbare squad, and to be without Ian Gough, Michael Owen, Ross Beattie, Luke Charteris and Rhys Oakley at the same time exposes the problem.

But they've come too far, they're too tight a unit and too well organised to allow anything serious to go wrong now.