TV View: Would he back down? Would he apologise? Would he swallow his pride for the good of the country? Would he offer even a teency, weency conciliatory gesture to Mick McCarthy? Would he let bygones be bygones, set aside differences for now, pull together for the sake of the World Cup campaign, wrap the green flag around him and return to the fold just in time for the Cameroon game?

There was a jet waiting for him on the Montrose runway, fuelled to the gills, ready to transport him back to the heart of the Irish camp. The decision was his.

Well, Eamon Dunphy? "I'm not a flag-waving leprechaun out on the streets, 'Ireland - right or wrong', I want Irish soccer to fulfil its destiny.I want us to fail, Yes, I want it to be exposed . . . I hoped today that Cameroon would beat us, that Germany would beat us and that we would go out of this tournament, it would be the right price to pay for what has happened." Is that a no, then?

There was a time when the nation would stampede as one in the direction of the kettle after an Irish World Cup game, but, by all accounts, the kettle sat untouched for most of Saturday. No power surges for the ESB to worry about, it was Eircom that was facing a system meltdown. (Mind you, their share price might surge upwards after this World Cup, think of all those extra calls to Montrose).

"Eamon," said Bill O'Herlihy, gravely. "I want to talk to you now." Which one of us hasn't been addressed in that manner in a headmaster's office? And which one of us hasn't responded as Eamon's body language did. You know the expression, the one that says: "what the bloody hell have I done now?" "There have been a lot of phone calls, in fact hundreds and hundreds, about your attitude to today's game," said Bill. So, Eamon explained his attitude to the day's game to the point where you got the feeling Bill was sorry he'd raised the subject in the first place. "I'm explaining where I'm coming from, that's what I believe, if they don't like it, get a new guy," Eamon concluded. Take that. Pow.

RTÉ, one would assume, had a quick think, weighed up the pros and cons of exiling Eamon to a month of dog-walking but most probably concluded: "nah, love him or loathe him, the whole nation's watching him . . . ratings . . . purr."

There is another factor to be considered in all of this. Repugnant and all as most Irish folk might regard Dunphy's post-Keanegate position (and true, there are times it has been so, well, immoderate that Keane must have muttered to himself "with friends like this, who needs . . .") the fact is it is representative of the feelings of some of RTÉ's World Cup viewers. Evidently not all of them, maybe not even a sizeable minority of them, but some of them at least.

Liam Brady and Johnny Giles, eloquently, sincerely and impressively, represent what is probably the majority view, that's fine, but why shouldn't a dissenting voice be heard? As Dunphy put it himself, "this is not the old Soviet Union". Anyway, trust me, some folk found that "Roy Who?" banner (spectacularly short memories, lads) and the lusty rendition of "Are you watching Roy Keane?" in Niigata as nauseating and depressing as others found the views expressed by Eamon Dunphy. The rift is real, not just an invention of The Last Word, as some would have us believe.

Anyway, the atmosphere was a little more serene in the BBC studio on Saturday morning. When the team sheets arrived there was some - surprise would be too weak a word - astonishment that Gary Kelly's name filled the right-back slot. Tricky position for Davo Leary, Kelly's club manager. "The surprise for me, and I'm delighted for Gary Kelly, but Finnan, for me, has had an outstanding season at Fulham and that is the only, as I say, surprise, even though, as I say, I'm delighted for Gary," he said. A ringing endorsement of his right back. In no sense at all.

By half-time, Davo was bidding adieu to Irish World Cup hopes. "Ireland, they've done marvellous to get here, to get of that group with Holland and Portugal, but . .." "David, don't give up on them yet," said Lineker. Shows you what Lineker knows.

Full-time? Lineker, clearly, knows his stuff.

"We were all asking ourselves would the Keane thing have an effect on the spirit of the side and it's quite obvious it had no effect at all, they were absolutely marvellous," said Liamo back on RTÉ. Red. Rag. To. A. Bull. "Let's not start dancing in the streets because we drew with Cameroon, who bottled it in the second half and threw on a no-no from Sheffield United - I was a no-no myself, I know about these things," said Eamo. "And he had Sheffield United written all over him, so we drew with them . . . Nothing will vindicate what happened last week to Roy Keane. Nothing."

Johnny Giles? Spent much of Saturday morning examining an imaginary speck of dust on the floor of RTÉ's World Cup studio, while Liamo scrutinised his pen in microscopic detail and Eamo studied the ceiling in despair.

Billo? He had a glance at RTÉ's World Cup viewing figures and noted, with not inconsiderable pleasure, that they were heading roughly in the direction that Eamo's eyes were focused.