What a time to be Irish!

I thought they were going to bottle it against the All Blacks. And then something odd happened at half time, and I found myself willing the Irish on and wanting them to win.

Why? Because they deserved to win. They outplayed us. They embraced their underdog status and gave it everything - and some. And there is nothing more uplifting than an underdog side playing out of its skin, daring to believe, and beating the world's best side. And they didn't just beat us. They scored five tries against the All Blacks, a team with one of the best defensive games in the world.

Will it hurt the All Blacks? No. Will it check them? Absolutely. And that’s not such a bad thing, is it?

I lived in Ireland for a couple of years, working for an Irish broadcaster. And the all blacks always came up in conversation. Were they as big as they looked on the telly? Did everyone, as in everyone, play rugby in New Zealand? And when we beat the English, they loved it. That was back when Martin Johnson and Lawrence Dallaglio were leading the charge for England, and the Irish enjoyed an All Black victory at Twickenham almost as much as we did.

I’ve been among Irish fans at the old Lansdowne Road stadium in Dublin when the English are in town. History hangs heavy in the air when those two teams play. Years of civil war, resistance and rebellion all bubble over…..It’s a fierce and intimidating environment to be in.

But it was county limerick that I thought of most when the Irish surged ahead in Chicago, not Dublin. I was watching Twitter….The Irish were tweeting #believe. That was part of a Guinness advertising campaign when I lived there, and it's stuck with the Irish ever since. And if you're an Irish fan watching a test against the all blacks, then you need to believe. In 111 years they've never beaten the All Blacks, nor were they expected to do so in Chicago.

But county Limerick... It's where Laura Ryan, one of my Irish colleagues took me one weekend to give me a little rugby history lesson. Laura was a mad-keen rugby fan from the heart of the Munster province. And she took me to Thomand Park for a private tour. It's the famous ground in limerick where Munster beat the all blacks back in 1978. Laura took me on a tour of a few pubs in Limerick too...And I met some historians, and a good number of Irish fans who fancied themselves as historians as well. The stories grew with every pint. The party had gone on for days on end. People didn't turn up to work for a week. They talked about the size of the all blacks that day. They were man-mountains, apparently. Hands the size of a giant's. At least six foot tall, the lot of them…..That game is folklore in Limerick.

And so with 15 minutes to go, I knew what the atmosphere would be like in Limerick. In fact, right across the Munster province. And I guess that's why I began to urge the Irish on. In one glorious game, the Irish turned history on its head and they'll be talking about that day forever more. They'll be still talking about it in the pubs now.

It wasn't a fluke, there was no luck involved. The Irish simply played the game of their life and thoroughly deserved to win -- and who, in the world of sport, could begrudge them that?