TV VIEW: Spend a day in front of the telly watching sport? If you insist boss. The family were struggling to believe this one. Honestly, it had to be done. It's work and somebody's gotta do it. Any chance of a few tinnies and a pizza? Might as well do it properly, writes Gerry Thornley

Test cricket, a feast of horse racing, Tri-Nations rugby, the, eh, Showjumping and some stickball, and of course, the European Athletics with Sonia at 4.30 the pivotal point of the day.

Forced to watch the 10,000 metres final earlier in the week in a pub (arm twisted, head held back, Carlsberg poured down my throat - sheer hell it was) surprisingly the establishment in question had it tuned in loudly to the Beeb.

Nobody was complaining mind. And despite the understandable eulogies being bestowed on Paula Radcliffe's phenomenal run, the commentators were more than generous to our Sonia.

Then again, the Brits and especially the Beeb are generally more generous to us than vice versa.

"Sonia O'Sullivan once again is giving them great entertainment back in Ireland," ventured Brendan Foster about half way through Saturday's 5,000 metres final. "And they'll be crowding around their televisions, hopefully watching the BBC."

And why wouldn't we? RTÉ pushed the boat out on the World Cup, but without anything like the resources of the Beeb again had George Hamilton going solo.

And as has long since been demonstrated, two voices are invariably better than one, all the more so if they are full-time specialists.

"It's still slow, very slow, which should suit Sonia," observed George with repetitive and slightly unnerving optimism. But Brendan was equally upbeat, if a tad more wary.

The sudden, anti-climactic ending stunned and saddened them as much as us. In the immediate post-race analysis, George suggested it might have been the six years Sonia was giving to Dominguez.

Foster reckoned "sadly, I think that race could have been won by Sonia if she'd only waited a little longer on the bend."

Tellingly, he also observed that she made her move in the second lane, "and that space she wasted on the top bend was more than the difference between the athletes when they finished together."

The Beeb's Sally Gunnell was first to interview her, Sonia declining her offer of the 10,000 as an excuse.

"I went too early," she admitted, thus setting herself up as a target. Once more disarmingly revealing a somewhat fragile big-race temperament, Sonia conceded that she "panicked a bit", then telling RTE's Clare McNamara that she was a bit too nervous.

"I made too many mistakes. I got there before I wanted to, a bit like way back back in Barcelona."

Still, George struck the right note when concluding: "We couldn't have asked for more. It was edge-of-the-seat stuff and Sonia didn't give up her gold without a fight." Darned Spaniards. Ruining our, eh, summer.

An Irishman was inadvertently hogging things in the South Africa-New Zealand match in Durban over on Sky Sports earlier.

When an Afrikaaner-type who'd eaten too many steaks in his life and consumed too many tinnies himself on the day, ran onto the pitch and hurtled into referee Dave McHugh, it was possibly the worse case of hooliganism ever seen at a Test match, and besmirched another great Tri-Nations encounter.

"He needs more than a bloody nose," said co-commentator John Allan of the intruder. "I'd have put the ball in and rucked him."

But, mindful of the opprobrium and heavy sanctions likely to come their way, admitted: "For our country this is not a good sign at all."

The South African commentators are actually less biased than their Antipodean counterparts and despite McHugh having awarded the All Blacks a penalty try and disallowed one by the Boks (both good brave calls), Allan also admitted "he's had a good game and there's been nothing wrong with his refereeing".

Over on Channel 4 the cricket coverage was excellent as also was their horse racing.

When Souruv Ganguly was wrongly given out on Friday evening, their "snickometer" immediately verified Dermot Reeve's verdict that the ball had clipped his elbow, not his gloves. They're almost too good.

But some things don't change. On Saturday the English batsmen denied the audience at home and a capacity Trent Bridge the last nine overs when accepting a spurious offer of bad light.

"That's baffling," said a peeved Reeve on a beautiful summer's evening, so ending "a ripper of a day's play" according to Mark Nicholas. Big blouses.

Suddenly there was nothing left to watch. Oh well. Burp. Pass us a tinnie.