Possibly based on the same perception as the Lonely Planet colour writers who visited Ireland, the Mole has a long streak of fatalism when it comes to anticipating rugby results for favoured Irish teams.

Upsets can happen to anybody, however; you don’t have to be a mick to have fortune desert you. Obviously it doesn’t hurt though.

With his vestigial memory of bad times from the past, Mole nosed his way through his stacked back copies of the IT and came across the following:

16 January 2011 London Irish 24 – 12 Ospreys

London Irish ended their 10 match losing sequence defeating an Ospreys team that contained nine of the players that subsequently starred for Wales in RWC11. Maybe not a mega surprise but it turned over the bookies predictions.

17 January 2009 Toulouse 26 – 33 Glasgow Warriors

It doesn’t happen every time nor every year but Glasgow’s defeat of Toulouse in Stade Ernest Wallon ultimately laid the path for Leinster’s journey to Edinburgh. Three tries and a virtuoso performance by Dan Parks with 18 points created one of the biggest surprises of Heineken Cup Pool history and helped demoralise Toulouse, who followed up with a 3-3 draw in Bath.

12 January 2008 Edinburgh 17 – 12 Leicester Tigers

A home win shouldn’t cause a huge surprise but given the form and Heineken Cup history of the respective teams, this was a major upset. Ultimately, it was this result which probably cost ex Argentina coach Marcello Loffreda his job at Welford Road and propelled Robinson in the opposite direction to the Scottish job.

13 January 2007 Leinster 49 – 10 Edinburgh

No big surprise here and nothing dramatic in the score line. But this was the last European game Leinster played in Donnybrook and 6,400 was even a full house! A lot has changed in 5 years.