Toil and no trouble: Declan Kidney was happy to get the first game out of the way

It's that time of year again, as the most trite and lazy of journalistic expressions has it. If it's March it must be Cheltenham, if it's summer it must be the championship and if it's a day or two past St Brigid's Day it can only be the Six Nations.

In passing, it is of course always "that time of year", irrespective of when the phrase is uttered. Come the revolution, "it's that time of year again" will receive the same scorched-earth treatment as "going forward", "iconic", "pre-prepared" and greengrocer's apostrophe's. (Ha!) We'll be prescribing slightly more extreme treatment – this involving the use of Semtex – for the bankers and the Law Library, but that's for another day.

To return to the business in hand. It's, ahem, that time of year again and Italy are the season's first visitors to Croke Park. The panel are not minded to beat around the bush. This, says George Hook, is a rehearsal for next weekend in Paris. "If you can't beat Italy at home…" adds Brent Pope, who clearly sees no need to finish the sentence. There are, it seems, easy games in international rugby. But pity a certain absent Cork man; with Leo Cullen there in the second row, Donncha O'Callaghan "will not be happy to have cried off today", Conor O'Shea surmises.

"They'll all talk of taking it one match at a time," George scoffs. Sure enough, Brian O'Driscoll and Declan Kidney do exactly that, with the manager emphasising the importance of his troops "working their way" through the game. Not for the first time, one is left feeling grateful, their platitudes aside (and let's face it, what else can they do but wheel out the platitudes prior to a match?), for Ireland's immense good fortune in possessing such a captain and such a manager.

No underwear bimbettes or super-injunctions with this duo. Besides, God forbid that Brian somehow blots his copybook and gets dropped by the Credit Union. Ad breaks on telly will never be the same again.

After kick-off is delayed by 20 minutes to allow the Garda Band work their way (they'd obviously been listening to Declan) through the Italian national anthem, the hosts (they in turn had obviously been listening to Tony Ward preach the importance of patience, moments before kick-off) take things nice and calmly.

Jamie Heaslip crosses following a sweeping move; Tomás O'Leary snipes his first international try with a flash of opportunism his father would have been proud of; your columnist is just about to dust off a crude historical metaphor he'd prepared – or pre-prepared, even – beforehand in the event of the Italian pack being driven backwards (clue: tanks, World War Two) when Rob Kearney gets sloppy and gifts a try to Kaine Robertson.

The panel aren't too harsh on "the Gaelic football-kicking full-back" (Tom McGurk's description) at half-time. George diagnoses overconfidence, a reasonable explanation in view of the fact that Ireland were leading 23-3 at the time. Otherwise it's been, in Conor's words, "a really professional performance". More of the same in the second half, per favore.

More of the same fails to ensue. The Italian tanks stay locked in neutral. The game stays locked in neutral. After winning the first half 23-8 Ireland win the second half 6-3. Some days are prosecco days; this is a flat-Peroni day. The panel are a long way south of whelmed.

"A game that resembled rugby in the 1950s," says George. "Just kicking the ball. I thought Ireland were awful." When you're Grand Slam winners, Brent argues, you have a responsibility: "You have to kick on. They didn't. It was a sloppy second half." Even Conor, the mildest of men, concedes that Ireland should have tried to rise it.

Try as the three of them might, they're unable to generate much heat nonetheless. "There's a lack of energy in the studio because there was a lack of energy on the pitch," Tom explains. Talking of energy, surely Ireland were saving theirs for Paris, he suggests. Nonsense, George snaps. Teams can't turn on form like a light switch.

To Paris next Saturday, then. Paris in the spring. It's that time of year again, after all.