At the end of yet another week when the prevailing rugby mood was a bit on the glum side the postmortem on Thursdays narrow 35-0 win over Russia not making for mood-lifting reading James Slipper reminded us that there is always hope of a brighter day.

After scoring his first try for Australia in his 94th appearance, against Uruguay at the crack of dawn on Saturday, his beam was almost as broad as the gap between the teams. Hopefully the floodgates will open now, he said.

They might too now that hes finally cracked the try-scoring code. But it brought to mind that horrendously cruel terrace chant of old: If Emile Heskey can play for England, so can I.

Maybe we need something similar for our journey in Japan, something like: If James Slipper can score a try for Australia, Ireland can find their World Cup mojo. Its not as catchy, admittedly, but weve heard less inspirational things.

Like, for example, on ITV on Saturday when Mark Pougatch showed Lawrence Dallaglio some dressing-room footage from his days as England captain when he told his underlings before a highly important game that if they didnt win theyd not only be letting their living family down, theyd be failing their dead relations too.

This, we thought, was a rather extreme approach to the art of motivation, sort of your deceased loved ones will spin in their graves if you dont go out and do the job and on your consciences be it if you fail, but Lawrence was evidently very proud of the speech, his nostrils flaring quite violently as he reviewed the clip.

All you could hope was that Johan Deysel didnt impart the same class of message to his Namibian colleagues ahead of their Sunday meeting with New Zealand, because no matter how plucky they proved to be, it was never going to end well. Nor did it.

Plucky they were, though, even surviving the Haka, the performance of which by the All Blacks in front of Namibia being akin to Conor McGregor bullying a five-year-old in the school playground and threatening to knock the living daylights out of him if he didnt hand over his bubble-gum before running for the hills.

Incidentally, the kick-off time in the New Zealand v Namibia game was 5:45am, and if you werent up in time youre only a World Cup fly-by-night. Looking at you, Tommy Bowe, not a sign of him and his Eir Sport crew for the game, himself, Eimear Considine and James Lowe only turning up for the 8:45am clash of France and Tonga.

By then we had a choice of Eir, RT and ITV, all three of them showing this particular game, until now RT only airing Irelands fixtures. Daire OBrien suggested to Bernard Jackman and Fiona Coghlan that it was an almighty relief to get a break from covering our lads games, the pairs heads nodding so hard they nigh on fell off their shoulders.

A more than decent game it was too, although there was a stressful moment for ITV commentator Martin Gillingham, already worn out from apologising for audible fruity language, especially from those uncouth backs, when Tonga brought on Leon Fukofuka as a sub.

Thankfully, were on first name terms with Leon, he said, although over on Eir, Eddie Butler was having no such problems, him displaying his legendary and unrivalled powers of pronunciation, somehow turning Fukofuka into something that sounded like a fragrant flower.

France prevailed, but just. They havent brought their je ne sais quoi to this World Cup, more their je ne sais pas, Pougatch said to Paul OConnell, who asked him to translate because, he intimated, he wasnt taught the language in Ardscoil Rs.

No translation was needed for Le Relief of Le French when they performed the Icelandic thunderclap in Japan after beating Tonga, while a gaggle of supporters in Italian shirts looked on, lest you hadnt grasped the Worldly Cup nature of this adventure.

Back on RT, Daire OBrien was finding his inner Karl ...its too early on a Sunday for a Marxist rant, but at the same time theres such global inequality, theres not much between France and Tonga, only money... a discussion that was not being had at all over on ITV.

The Pougatch man was too busy focusing on all things England. The day the World Cup got serious, he said of Blightys tussle with Argentina.

Irish, Scottish and Welsh fans might well have said Fukofuka you.

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TV view: Dallaglio shows he is deadly when it comes to motivation - The Irish Times