Tony Ward: Provinces just can't be leagues apart

This time last year the game here was on the deck. After the World Cup and our ignominious exit to Argentina, it was as if our rugby Hindenburg had been deflated. Injuries to key players ultimately put a halt to our ambition but, if we're brutally honest, we were all guilty of raising the bar much too high in advance of a tournament mapped in Irish minds to the final or at least to an unprecedented semi-final.