SOCCER: MARY HANNIGANwatched as Sky Sportstried their best to talk up the inaugural Nations Cup

A CONFUSING evening of channel-switching, at times. A bit addling, even. Would James McCarthy change his mind, accept the invitation, make his way to Dublin and fill the hole beside Eamon Gilmore and Micheál Martin? Would Enda Kenny find a last-minute window in his schedule to use his silky skills to provide the defence-splitting ammo for Jonathan Walters and Kevin Doyle? In the end, the attendance at TV3 was just the two, if you exclude Giovanni Browne, and despite pre-match fears that not a whole heap more seats than that would be filled at Lansdowne Road, the turn out wasn’t too bad, considering.

While Ursula Halligan stopped short of promising us the debate would be intoxicating – in a ‘just like watching Brazil’ kind of way – over on Sky Sports their intro to the evening’s fare suggested that the Carling Nations Cup would put the World Cup in the Ha’penny place.

First we had a blonde woman with the Welsh dragon tattooed all over her back, then a Scottish man with a rampant lion tattooed all over his front. He was evidently so emotional about the Carling Nations Cup that you could only assume his dream was that proud Craig Levein’s army would send Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic homeward tae think again.

And then we were shown clips of George Best, Neville Southall, Gordon Strachan, Niall Quinn, Norman Whiteside, Pat Jennings, Mark Hughes, Kenny Dalglish (jeez, where is HE now?), Ryan Giggs and Ronnie Whelan, just to remind us of the footballing heritage of the “four proud nations”.

Funnily enough, Ronnie turned up on the Six o’clock News with Tony O’Donoghue to preview the game, insisting that the Carling Nations Cup was important, that it could kick-start a glorious spell for the Republic just as victory in the 1986 Iceland Triangular Tournament had marked the beginning of our halcyon days under Jack Charlton.

“But you didn’t turn up in Iceland,” Tony reminded Ronnie. “Well, no: I was the James McCarthy of the time,” he conceded.

“Wintry, windy and wet, but the weather is tinged with a sense of anticipation in Dublin this evening,” said a welcoming Ben Shephard, unaware that it was actually the debate that had the city all a-tingle.

“It’s about time we had one of these things going on,” said Ben to his companion for the evening, Chris Coleman – a man, incidentally, who we have loved ever since he had his season as Fulham captain cut short after an unfortunate traffic accident left him with a broken leg.

“He swerved to avoid what he thinks was a deer, it all happened so fast,” his ‘friend’ told the press. “He also said the animal could have been something smaller, like a rabbit.”

Any way, auld Bright Eyes was as excited as Ben about the Carling Nations Cup, anticipating that the games would be passionate affairs.

“There are no friendlies in international football,” he said, which isn’t technically true, but we got his point.

Teams in the tunnel. And then they entered the arena to the strains of Thus Spake Zarathustra, the tune penned by German popstar Richard Strauss and used in that ‘epic drama of adventure and exploration’, A Space Odyssey. Seán St Ledger looked at Glenn Whelan, Glenn Whelan looked at Seán St Ledger and while our lip-reading skills are ropey, we think they were saying: “Eh, whatever”.

Off we went. Twenty-seven minutes in Wales won a penalty. Except they weren’t given it, which is fair enough. We’re hosting this thing, after all.

That was it, really. “It has to be said, not a lot going on out there,” conceded Ben at half-time. “But should the Welsh have had a penalty,” he asked, in a kind of a ‘is there life on Mars?’ way.

“Yes,” said Chris, but he then risked losing the gig by saying, but a suspiciously wry chuckle, “I wouldn’t say it was a great advert for the four nations”.

“Damien Duff seems to be enjoying himself,” Ben countered. “It’s well someone is,” Chris almost replied.

Second half. A couple of substitutions, but still divil a sign of Enda.

After that. Well, it was just like watching Brazil. Gibsoninho, Carlos Dufferto and Edson Arantes do Fahey doing their goalscoring thing.

“Huh, who needs Enda,” Vincento Trapattoni was heard to cry.