TV ViewNot since we were in high infants and put Fuzzy Felt in Billy Nolan's banana sandwich had we heard the phrase: "This nonsense will HAVE to stop!" But that's how agitated Eamon Dunphy was after 45 minutes of last night's encounter at Croke Park. After 90? Well, you know yourself.

In fairness to Steve Staunton his former team-mate Jim Beglin should at least share some of the blame for Cyprus very nearly winning the damn game, for it was he who reassured us not long before their goal that our visitors seemed to be "settling for what they'd got", a draw. Which is what they got in the end, but not in quite the manner Beglo anticipated.

But Beglo could be absolved of any responsibility for the team selection, one that had John Giles nigh on holding his team-sheet upside down ahead of the game in the hope that it would make more sense from an altered angle.

"More tinkering tonight," asked Bill O'Herlihy. Gilesie? By now he was busy trying to look at the team-sheet sideways, so Liam Brady offered to answer the question. "Well," he said, "at least he's got the left side right."

Alas, the right left a lot to be desired. "Andy Keogh," asked Dunphy. And no one had an answer. "He has nothing to offer going forward, he may prove me wrong but I doubt it," he said.

"He's put Joey O'Brien in midfield which I find a little hard to understand, he's a full-back," said Liam. "A full-back who played at centre-half on Saturday and did very well, but now he's in midfield," agreed Gilesie, who'd given up on the team-sheet.

The panel was so befuddled by this insistence on playing players out of position they were just relieved Shay Given wasn't put in the hole behind the front two, with Robbie Keane as libero, and that pretty much accounting for their sense of foreboding. "I refuse to believe that tonight is going to be a tough match," said Billo, but Gilesie refused to believe that it would be anything else. Billo felt the lads were being overly pessimistic which, to be honest, so did we.

"This is as about a severe a test against opposition you're expected to beat comfortably that you could get," said Eamo. "Everyone expects us to win three or four, I don't think we will - it could turn a little bit nasty for everybody," agreed Liamo. "I don't think it'll be an easy match," said Gilesie. Billo was gobsmacked.

And off we went. Stephen Hunt had Beglo tingling. "He's a little Tasmanian devil, and I mean that in the nicest possible way," he said, but half an hour later he felt one Stephen Hunt just wasn't enough. "It's the kind of game Stephen Hunt could come on in and make a difference, the problem is he's already out there."

Half-time and the panel was speechless. Just kiddin'. "What's gone on tonight, it's bordering on BAFFLING," said Liamo, his sympathy going to O'Brien and Keogh, victims, he reckoned, of their manager's quirky reluctance to play players in the positions they fill for their clubs week in, week out. "O'Brien in midfield has been embarrassing and a disaster," said Eamo, expressing his sympathy in a less sympathetic manner, "young Keogh on the right has nothing to offer this team". "Well," said Liam, "that boy O'Brien will never forget this match - and it's not his fault."

Second half. "Time to win ugly," declared Darragh in the commentary box, "it has been ugly, but Ireland aren't winning."

Even before the Cypriot goal depression had struck. "It's kind of hard to watch, isn't it," he sighed. "It is," said Beglin, whose mood somewhat worsened after the goal. "I didn't think it could get any worse, but it just has. It's plummeted." Not even the equaliser lifted him from his gloom.

"An embarrassing night for Irish football," said Dunphy back in the studio. "An embarrassing struggle," said Liam. "Embarrassing, Bill," said Giles. There was a theme developing. Eamo suggested that "the FAI will lose all their credibility if they don't do the right thing now", namely sacking Staunton, but others would argue it was lost when they appointed him.

"I'll play Devil's Advocate here . . . it's a four-year plan, it's . . ." but Bill was halted in his tracks by Eamo. "STOP this nonsense, Bill," he said. "We're all on that train that was going to Cork, but we're jumping off." Bill nodded. Glumly.