World Cup TV View: The news from RTÉ yesterday that their audience for the England v Sweden game peaked at 751,000 on Tuesday night was simply astonishing. Astonishing because it must have meant the rest of the Irish World Cup-watching audience - a big hello to Séamus, Eileen and Pádraig - tuned in to Tel, Sam and Stu on ITV for the match.
As young people are inclined to say: "Hello?" It doesn't, of course, mean all 751,000 are fans of Billo, Eamo, Liamo, Gilesie, Sounie, Kenny, Dinny and Co. Indeed, we know of people who tune in to the World Cup on RTÉ just to be annoyed.
"They're so anti-English it's untrue - for God's sake, they're our neighbours. Why wouldn't we support them?" said our Meath friend. So, you'll be backing the Dubs in the Championship this year? "Will I ****," he said. "Please God they'll be hammered, otherwise we'll never hear the end of it."
Souness, in particular, has proved to be a big hit - indeed some, who wouldn't have been fans of his before RTÉ took him on loan from Sky Sports, have pointed out if he'd managed Liverpool, Southampton, Blackburn and Newcastle as well as he talks football they'd have won eight league titles and six Champions Leagues between them.
Meanwhile, yet more scorn is being poured on ITV. We could repeat some of the comments we've spotted on blogs and the like but there are only so many ****s you can read before your eyes go blurry.
Clive Tyldesley bore the brunt yesterday for saying, "It looks like England have beaten Sweden for the first time in 38 years," nanoseconds before Sweden equalised at the death, though it was hardly, as alleged, as fine a moment as Kevin Keegan's in 1998: "There's only one team can win this now - and that's England." Poor Kev, Dan Petrescu's winner for Romania moments later probably still haunts him.
So, the doubts about Sven's boys linger, not least because he's down to three forwards - four if you count Crouchie twice. "A seven-year-old kid who's never played a Premiership game," said Dunphy yesterday of Theo Walcott. It was, we're sure, a slip of the tongue, though when you look at Walcott you'd wonder.
Later in the evening when Billo, Gilesie, Liamo and Sounie were discussing England's catastrophic defending against Sweden, Sam Allardyce was telling ITV viewers England "have the best defence in this tournament". Even Séamus, Eileen and Pádraig must have been tempted to switch channels at that stage.
Mexico v Portugal. We were aware Liverpool and Spain's Xabi Alonso, while learning English as a teenage language student in Kells (hence his surreal Scouser/Spanish/Meath accent), played Gaelic football with the locals. We didn't know, though, that a couple of the Mexican team were GAA men too. Not since Anthony Tohill in his prime has any one fielded a ball as sublimely as Rafael Marquez, the one that led to that Portugal penalty. And if Omar Bravo was a Cork man Colin Corkery would never have taken a free in his lifetime for his county, so beautifully did the Mexican place the ball over the bar. From a penalty. "You've got to hit the target," said Gareth Southgate on ITV. Eh, Gareth? He rescued himself: "But you're not going to find me telling people how to take penalties."
"Let's try to draw some conclusions from England's point of view, if they do meet the Portuguese in the quarter-finals," said Jim Rosenthal. "Well, I don't fancy England going 4-4-2 against the Portuguese, I can see 4-5-1 with Rooney up there on his own," said Andy Townsend. "Portugal can be square at the back so are susceptible to runs from deep, so with Gerrard and Lampard and Cole coming at them there's an opportunity to really hurt them," said Robbie Earle. This conversation assumed two things: (1) that England would beat Ecuador and (2) that Portugal would beat Argentina or Holland.
Lads? Speaking of whom. Argentina v Holland, that is. There's Maradona, hugging Platini. A good hug, not a great hug. Gilesie was feeling a bit let down by the Argentinians, but on ITV Stu Pearce was smitten. "I can't see no one touching this mob," he sighed. "And that's their reserves," said Ruud Gullit. "****," said Big Sam's face.
