smoke, I forgot to say thank you.

Sean drove me to the closest clinic. He was my friend, which meant, of course, he laughed at me the entire ride, and would, for many years, tell the story of the brave and stalwart actions of the Girl Scouts to everyone we knew.

At the clinic, the physician, a man in his early forties, removed my pantleg with a pair of shears. The skin on the inner part of my ankle had melted down to the underlying facia and came off with the pantleg. He removed the dead skin around the burn with surgical scissors and dressed the wound. Sean sat in the treatment room, watching the procedure. I winked at him.

“Doctor,” I said, looking down at the dressing on my leg,Kidney's position is becoming increasingly under-pressure after their 12-8 loss to Scotland at the weekend. Ireland dominated much of the game, both in territory and possession, but they failed to take advantage of their try-scoring opportunities. Kidney's contract runs out after the current Six Nations and various bookmakers believe that his days with Ireland are numbered.

His tenure with Ireland started on a victorious note when they scooped the 2009 Grand Slam, but they crashed out of the 2011 World Cup at the quarter-final stages and suffered a hammering at the hands of the All Blacks in June.

If Kidney leaves Ireland after the Six Nations then O'Shea seems to be the early favourite to take over from him. Leinster's Joe Schmidt and Ireland Under-20 boss Mike Ruddock are also