They closed their eyes and pulled like dogs and after a lifetime of Irish rowing hoping that its Olympic lá would tiocfaidh, it had finally arrived thanks to the incomparable Gary and Paul O’Donovan.

Neville Maxwell had come closer than most, fourth at the 1996 Games, but now “fourth place is in the bin,” he said on RTÉ. Revenge from Skibbereen for all that heartbreak, if you like, and if Maxwell himself had won gold 20 years before, it’s hard to imagine him being a whole lot more emotional about it than he was after the brothers did their silvery thing.

“These are two very ordinary guys who have done an extraordinary thing,” he said, adding that the entire nation should take the rest of the day off.

Like we weren’t going to do that any way.

The omens had been good from the start, a drenched and windswept Des Cahill popping up on our screens from Rio declaring it to be “a soft Irish day”, so POD and GOD would feel right at home. But our skies darkened a little after we saw Sinead Lynch and Claire Lambe struggle in their final, possibly having felt pressured by Myles Dungan’s introduction. “Without wanting to sound too much like Winston Churchill, this is Irish rowing’s finest hour – or half hour.”

Joanne Cantwell had saluted Lynch by noting that she is “five years older than the two O’Donovans put together”, which gave a fair indication of her stupendous longevity and a chilling reminder than the brothers were just four when Neville’s heart was left in smithereens in Atlanta.

‘Pull like dogs’

“Are the Cork brothers ready to pull like dogs,” asked Joanne, and with that we went back to Rio, where, upon seeing the lads start slugglishly enough, Winston came to mind again. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Myles, though, reminded us that the O’Donovans always start slowly, that’s their thing, “they are to race starts what Liam Brady was to the right foot”. But they seemed to be struggling and rowing like Chihuahuas while the fellas in front of them looked like Great Danes and . . . hold it . . . HERE THEY COME!

Those [of us] who sinfully only watch a bit of rowing every four years are always undone by those camera angles, one making it look like Skibbereen wouldn’t medal at all, another persuading us we were about to be dripping in gold. It wasn’t until the graphic appeared and we saw the green, white and gold floating on the water with a “2” beside it that we knew the time had come to party. Hard.

Back in the studio, Neville’s happiness was a very lovely thing, his effort to fight back the tears bordering on the heroic. “I couldn’t watch it,” he said, but he did really. “They’re immortal,” he smiled.

Over on the BBC John Inverdale and Steve Redgrave snared our boys before RTÉ could get to them, POD deciding they needed to be on their best behaviour. It might be the year that’s in it, but still.

“We’ll have to be careful what we say in front of these lads,” he said to GOD, before Inverdale wondered if at any point they thought they’d win gold. “Since last September,” said POD, GOD nodding. It’ll come.

And then they met up again with RTÉ’s Joe Stack and they threw a wink in the direction of their earlier chats, specifically the one that POD said did that “spiral thing on the interweb”.

All of which left some concluding they only hopped over to Brazil for a bit of craic, shteak and spuds, like they were extras from The Quiet Man. Their left earlobes are smarter than most of the rest of us, and they’re athletes more finely tuned than the bulk of the residents in the Olympic Village. They’re loving playing us. And how could you not loved being played? They’re epic, these fellas.

Content enough

“We’re dreading going home because Mick Conlan said he’d box the head off us if we didn’t win gold,” said POD, but he was content enough, for now, with silver. And he encouraged anyone watching to take up rowing, “there are plenty of people with two arms and two legs like ourselves so there could be more Olympic champions to come, please God.”

Had he a message for the folk back home?

“Tiocfaidh ár lá,” he grinned.

It already had.

The six o’clock news and there was the brothers’ ma, Trish, clinging to her rosary beads as she watched from the stands, her ecstasy briefly interrupted by a marriage proposal from her partner. We didn’t hear her reply, but it might have been along the lines of “your day will tiocfaidh, for now I want to enjoy these Rio clouds and their silvery lining”.