“If that speedometer drops below three figures, we’re in trouble.”

60 miles out from Holyhead and with the 3.15pm departure to Dun Laoghaire imminent, desperate measures were required.

Having jumped into a car with Tom, Teeth, Maddog and Charlie Bevan at 10am in Cheltenham, bound for the promised land of Croke Park, our hopes of making Dublin in time for Saturday’s crunch match between Wales and Ireland were beginning to look decidedly dicey.

It was Maddog – sandwiched between Teeth and me in the back seat of the car, and visibly rattled by a long traffic jam outside Stafford – who began to crack first.

“Put the hammer down, kid!” he begged Tom, who was white-knuckling it behind the wheel like a Cymru-born Alain Prost.

His anxiety was understandable. Ahead of us lay a rendezvous with other notable alumni of Cowbridge Comprehensive - Grunty, Dogger, Bones, Lloydy, Purcy, Dan and Medz, not to mention Dogger’s Dad and at least half of the remaining Welsh population.

If we missed the ferry, we faced the nightmarish prospect of watching one of the most eagerly-anticipated Six Nations matches for years on the plasma screen of the Edinburgh Castle, Holyhead docks’ premier entertainment establishment.

My plan to spurn the offer of a simple flight from London in favour of a berth with Warren Gatland's barmy army would also look even more foolish than some misery-guts back home had already predicted.

Not that the day would have been wasted entirely, of course. Facts learned on the long drive northwards included the following:

1. Maddog is unsure of the difference between Qwells and quails

2. A lunch of dry roasted peanuts, Jelly Babies and foam prawns, eaten at 90mph on the M6 somewhere near Cannock, can be remarkably satisfying

3. The Welsh name for the town of Flint is “Fflint”

4. Tom’s mum has a thing for James Hook

5. You can find yourself on Anglesey without even realising you’ve left the mainland

6. Maddog is the wrong person to go speed-dating with

7. Home-grown Welsh whisky is not as bad as you might imagine

8. Teeth does not look as much like Channel Four presenter Steve Jones as he would like to think

9. Maddog has a back so hairy that £700-worth of laser treatment failed to remove a single follicle

Watching it all with an expressionless face was Serevi, the large toy sheep mascot jammed into the boot along with a bag of fresh leeks, Thermos of leek soup and family-pack of rosettes.

Less expressionless was Maddog when Tom followed a plucky overtaking manoeuvre in the contra-flow outside Conwy with an audacious piece of cutting-up just shy of the port to see us squeak aboard moments before the gangway was raised.

As I write, with Dublin’s fair streets beneath our feet, the male voice choirs are already in full effect.

Whether a man named Square has made it as well is a matter of debate. He was last seen lying on the baggage carousel at Dun Laoghaire, about to disappear from view behind a curtain of rubber strips. I wish him well.

In the meantime, let me know how your own Six Nations journeys are progressing. I'll update you on all things Dublin around lunchtime on Saturday.

There's a slim chance it could be messy.