TV VIEW:THERE WERE times yesterday that it seemed as if RTÉ's pundits were losing the will to live, to the point where you wondered if it might have been an idea to get them to swap studios and codes. A change being as good as a rest, that kind of thing.

At least then they’d have had a break from their own particular ordeals, with, say, Colm O’Rourke and Pat Spillane switching to South Africa v Iraq in the Confederations Cup and Ray Houghton and Ronnie Whelan looking after Westmeath v Wicklow.

Pat would have been happier, you can be sure, analysing Ali Hussein Rehema and Macbeth Sibayo’s abilities, or lack of them, while Ronnie might just have been refreshed by having to scrutinise Fergal Wilson and Dean Odlum’s displays.

The camera wasn’t, naturally enough, focused on our panel when Wilson equalised for Westmeath with three minutes in to injury-time yesterday, sending the game into extra-time, but you know that painting “The Scream”, by the Munch fella? That’s probably how Colm and Pat looked at that very moment.

“This is the doomsday scenario – extra-time, we’re going to get more of it,” said a deeply distressed Pat. “Please God, things will improve. Who’s the patron saint of hopeless causes?”

“St Jude,” said Michael Lyster.

Pat: “I’ll keep praying and Colm can keep talking for a minute.”

Michael: “Colm?”

Colm: “There’s not much you can say.”

The pair, in truth, were already struggling by half-time, Pat concluding that the spectacle was more torturous than water-boarding. “I don’t know whether the Americans are looking for any new forms of punishment for Guantanamo Bay – but I have one for them: a video of the first 35 minutes of that game, because that was a horror show.”

Colm was no less weary, suggesting that both sets of players lacked a certain fire-in-the-belly. “There was more passion in Croke Park last night when Mná na hÉireann took over,” he said of Take That’s visit to Headquarters, the insinuation being that Westmeath and Wicklow were failing to relight his dampened fire.

Pat’s embers were a bit on the extinguished side too, not really having the look of a man who cared when Michael asked him who he thought would prevail in extra-time. “Do you have a coin there and I’ll toss it up,” he said.

Down the RTÉ corridor, meanwhile, Ronnie and Ray were on Confederations Cup duty with Darragh Maloney. Why are RTÉ covering the Confederations Cup? It’s hard to say, but it could be they’ve taken pity on those of us who regard World Cup and European Championship-free summers as a wasteland of nothingness.

“Ronnie, what do you expect from this year’s Confederations Cup?” asked Darragh. “I’ve got a great feeling about it,” he said, with a face as straight as a ruler.

Half-time, 0-0. If Pat had been in Ronnie or Ray’s seat he’d have called it “puke football”, but Ronnie and Ray are more polite, even removing the matchsticks holding up their eyelids before launching in to their half-time analysis.

“A low-key start to this tournament, it’s been a bit of a struggle,” said Darragh. Ronnie and Ray nodded.

And they may even have nodded off during the second half. Full-time, 0-0. “Unfortunately we didn’t get a goal,” said Darragh. “But we came close. A couple of times.”

“Iraq tonight were embarrassing, to be honest,” said Ray, insisting that their Fifa world ranking of 77 flattered them. “I mean, who do they play?” he asked.

“Probably the likes of Uzbekistan and Papua New Guinea, the Westmeath and Wicklow of world football,” Pat would have said if he’d had half the chance.

At least Senan Connell and Peter Canavan had more uplifting fare to comment on the night before, when TV3 showed the replay between Cork and Kerry. The match was delayed, though, because of congestion at the turnstiles, Peter feeling for the players because the dressing rooms in Páirc Uí Chaoimh weren’t somewhere you’d want to be stuck.

“They’re very cramped, they’re very dark, it’s like changing in the Aillwee Caves,” he said. “Senan (Connell, his fellow TV3 pundit) was telling me about a National League match that Dublin played here. It was that dark that one of the Dublin players, when he was changing, actually put his leg into someone else’s shirt.”

That particular pair of Dubs must have looked a sight when they made their way, arm in leg, out on to the Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch, confirming the suspicion long held by Cork folk: them Dubs are a different breed.

Anyway, Cork won, meaning Kerry lost. “You know that great piece of Irish literature we were all subjected to when we went to school,” said Pat yesterday.

" Peig. Her opening line about herself was that she was an old woman now, with one leg on the bank and the other in the grave – and in a way it could sum up this Kerry football team."