Ireland's Triple Crown win was a great achievement, but we should have been celebrating greater things.

Now that the Six Nations is over for another year, it's time I gathered my thoughts on the whole thing.

On the face of it, Ireland had a good tournament. We won the Triple Crown and finished in second place overall, behind France on points difference. The players came through unscathed for the most part (Denis Leamy should be fit for the Munster-Perpignan match.) So far so good.

But was it such a triumph? Six Nations 2006 will hardly go down in history as a vintage year. No team stood out, and several of the matches were pretty poor fare. To win the Triple Crown, Ireland had to beat a Welsh team that was missing a huge chunk of its first-choice starting XV and had just lost its coach; a Scotland that is only now emerging from a sustained period in the wilderness; and a rudderless, disorganised England. Remember that on the first weekend, Ireland made heavy weather of Italy, and got a few favours from the ref. If they had lost to Italy that day and then gone on to win the Triple Crown, would we have celebrated so noisily?

Then there was the French match. For fifty minutes, Ireland were utterly inept, gifting at least five of the six tries the hosts had scored by that point. It was only as they were in a huddle behind the posts, with the conversion of David Marty's second try whizzing over their heads, that they managed to get act together. The next thirty minutes saw them score four converted tries and come within two scores of pulling off the greatest comeback of all time. The question was asked several times afterwards: If they could do that in the last 30 minutes, why did they have to wait till then, when the game was out of reach? Given that only one French try could actually be attributed to Gallic flair, and all the rest down to Gaelic error, this match went into the column entitled "The One That Got Away." And ultimately, so did the tournament.

Finishing second and winning the Triple Crown has for sure taken away the pressure Eddie O'Sullivan was feeling after the Autumn series débacle. He is now secure in his position as national coach until after the World Cup next year. But in truth the Irish team has been standing still for some time now. Since the Five Nations became Six in 2000, Ireland have come twice four times (two of those times losing out on points difference), and third three times. There have been four Grand Slams in that period, two for France and one each for England and Wales. Not wanting to sound ungrateful or anything, but Ireland should have won the championship at least once in that period, certainly in the last three seasons. Winning two Triple Crowns in three years is all well and good, but they are not the Championship. They were relevant back in the day when the tournament was only contested by Ireland and the British nations, and a Triple Crown was also a Grand Slam, but things have moved on and that prize has lost its value. It's a pity that there is a Triple Crown trophy now, because it takes the eyes off the main prize that is the Six Nations Championship.

Ireland's next outing will be the tour to New Zealand and Australia in the summer. Make no mistake, we will get hosed by the All-Blacks in the two tests. Back in the autumn, Ireland had nothing to offer against New Zealand when they came to Dublin. OK, we were missing O'Connell and O'Driscoll, our two most influential players, but would they in truth have managed to prevent the All-Blacks scoring 45 points, had they been there? Bad and all as it was being hammered by New Zealand, we also managed to lose to the worst Australian side to visit these shores in a generation.

There was an interesting interview with Paul O'Connell in the Irish Times on Saturday. I've long been of the opinion that he should be the captain instead of O'Driscoll, as I believe that he is much more a leader of men. The best quote of the interview was this one: "I haven't achieved anything yet. With the quality of players we have now, we want to win Triple Crowns, sure, but we want to win championships and Grand Slams too, and believe it or not, World Cups. At the end of our careers, when we look back, if we haven't won something substantial, and more than once, we'll be disappointed."

Ireland had probably the most experienced set of starting players in the Six Nations this year. I don't have all the numbers to hand, but just looking at the match last Saturday, Ireland started with 590 caps in total, or just short of forty for every player on the team. England started with 367, or 24.5 per player.

It begs the question: Just when are they going to realise their potential, and how?