It took a while to battle out, but the boys in studio came to a consensus by the end, writes MARY HANNIGAN

RTÉ ON the telly, one internet eye on Zilina, the other on Yerevan, a calculator in one hand and a couple of aspirin in the other. It’s on nights like that you’d half envy those nations sitting cosily in mid-table obscurity, divil a care in the world or an ounce of pressure as they wind up their qualifying campaigns.

True, it’d be better still if you’d already qualified for Polkraine and could have spent last night filing your nails, pitying the poor eejits trying to figure out if Ireland, Belgium, Estonia, France (cripes), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden, Greece or Croatia would finish up as the best runners-up, with the most points against teams ranked in the top five in their group. It’s at that stage your calculator waves a white flag and just tells you to wait for Tuesday.

But there really shouldn’t have been any cause for concern ahead of the trip to Andorra, as John Giles reassured us: “They are what they are: the worst team in the world.”

“They’re joint worst,” Bill O’Herlihy corrected him, insisting on giving a shout out to Samoa, American Samoa, Montserrat and San Marino, with whom Andorra share 203rd and last spot in the Fifa world rankings.

“Okay, joint worst,” conceded Gilesie, but even armed with that information he still wasn’t fretting about the night ahead. He didn’t quite share Bill’s hunch that Ireland might muller Andorra, but he was hopeful enough that they’d get the job done.

Eamon Dunphy, though, had his concerns, reckoning the game was “fraught with danger for Ireland”, and was unkind enough to remind the viewers of one or two similar hiccups in the past.

Giovanni Trapattoni, in his pre-match chat, wasn’t totting up his chickens either, paying his favourite compliment to opponents: “They play quickly.”

They had, after all, mullered the ball in to the net on one occasion in Dublin last year – granted, they conceded three. True, it was their only goal of the campaign, but having breached our defences once, who was to say they wouldn’t do it all over again?

Bill was having none of it. “With respect,” he said, which indicated that he was about to be disrespectful to Eamon’s anxiety, “I think there’s an awful lot of nonsense being spoken about this game. Surely there’s no question of us not winning tonight? It should be easy.”

Again, it might just have been nerves, but you had a sinking feeling that Bill’s declaration would have 1,000,000 YouTube hits by lunchtime today, and would star in Reeling in the Years soon enough. You know, a ‘where were you when Bill said it’ moment (In front of the telly? Where else?).

Goalflash. Don’t you hate when they say “there’s been a goal in Zilina” and you then have to wait for what feels like a day and a half for them to tell you who bloody got it? But – and this could have been Bill’s happy influence – you sensed that it was Slovakia, which would have meant that if Ireland could beat . . . “Dzagoev for Russia.”

Right. Forget that, then.

Over to the stadium and Darragh Maloney told us its capacity was 850, and by the sounds of the battle of the anthems, Ireland had acquired 849 of the tickets.

Ronnie Whelan paid tribute to the hosts by noting that “what we saw in Dublin is that they’re not very good at football”, although Darragh tempered his confidence by pointing out that the teams would be playing with the Jabulani ball, the one that makes every free-kick look like a Roberto Carlos special.

Happily, beach ball or not, Ireland set about proving that Bill was entirely right to not be hugely concerned about the joint worst team in the world, 2-0 in no time at all.

“It’s like watching a kids’ game on a Sunday morning,” said Ronnie, who found himself to be increasingly irked by the Andorrans as the Sunday morning kick-about wore on. “They did a lot of this in Dublin as well, falling down, screaming, annoying people,” he sighed.

Heavily.

But he was happy. And so was Bill at half-time. “I said they were hopeless,” he told Gilesie. “You were absolutely right,” he replied.

Although Liam Brady thought Andorra at least deserved credit for their bravery. “I mean, the Pujol fella headbutted Robbie Keane’s boots – they’re very determined.”

The second half was much ado about not a great deal, but a win’s a win a win, insisted Eamon.

“The reality is, surely, that they were brutal,” said Bill, struggling to imagine that Samoa, American Samoa, Montserrat and San Marino couldn’t muller them even on a bad day.

“It was an endurance test in the second half, wasn’t it,” he said.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be getting up at 5.30am to watch it,” Eamon agreed.

In fairness, who in their right mind would get up at 5.30 in the morning to watch any sporting contest?