TV VIEW:THERE WERE, admittedly, a few bright spots, but, on the whole, that was a rubbish sporting week. The lowpoint, perhaps, was the defeat on Saturday of The Beast from the East, Nikolay Valuev.

Admittedly, we didn’t watch the fight, contenting ourselves with the build-up – and they, more often than not, tend to be more entertaining than any bout. But, having read that he wooed his wife-to-be with poetry – that was it, we were rooting for Goliath against David (Haye, that is).

Earlier in the week, Sky News gave us a little insight to Nikolay’s background, and, while we shouldn’t laugh, we laughed when we heard about the Moscow security guard who criticised Nikolay’s wife’s parking skills – at which point all 7ft 2in of Nikolay, with his size 18 feet, appeared and asked the security guard to repeat what he had just said.

Unfortunately – and this is the bad bit – the security guard ended up in hospital.

The key, then, for Haye was not to mention Mrs Valuev’s parking abilities at any point during the fight in Nuremberg, although he had already, pluckily, described his opponent as a “circus show freak” who “doesn’t smell too sweet”.

When we watched the weigh-in on Sky we reckoned David would go the same way as the security guard, unless he pummelled Nikolay’s ankles, which were just about at his eye level.

Alas, David triumphed over Goliath on points, although, in fairness, the Londoner paid a nice tribute to his opponent, revealing that “his head is solid, the hardest thing I’ve ever hit, it’s like hitting a solid brick wall”. Sweet.

That disappointment came on top of the clash of Wales and New Zealand when the Autumn Internationals burst on to our screens on Saturday. The quality of the contest caused us to drift off, only to be woken by a heated debate between the RTÉ panel on the subject of Diana Ross.

“England were appalling, Diana Ross would have beaten them today,” Tom McGurk declared, a proclamation that left us hopelessly confused, until we rewound a bit.

George Hook and Brent Pope had nigh on ended up grappling on the studio floor when they were asked to select their Irish team for next weekend’s game against Australia.

Tighthead? “That’s Declan Kidney’s big problem,” said George, “and look, Diana Ross is better than Mike Ross.”

Brent: “That’s not fair!”

George: “It is! Ross is not an international tighthead!”

Brent was appalled by this slur, perhaps recalling the crime against humanity that was Diana’s Endless Love duet with Lionel Richie, or, perhaps, her penalty-miss in the 1994 World Cup finals’ opening ceremony, the one that inspired John Terry’s effort that time in Moscow.

“But look,” Tom intervened, “can Ireland beat Australia?”

“They’ll destroy us in the scrum, give us a hard time in the lineout, play more inventively in the back line. Australia will win,” said, well, you know yourself.

“I think Ireland will beat Australia,” said Brent.

We’re up and running, a new season, although same as it ever was, really.

Speaking of Jamie Redknapp. “Manchester United will be delighted – apart from losing the game,” he said after yesterday’s joust at Stamford Bridge, the “apart” being slightly bigger than Nikolay Valuev.

Pre-match, the focus was on United’s poppy-less shirts: the club is just one of two in the English Premier League (Liverpool being the other – unless they relent before their game tonight) to refuse to have their jerseys embroidered with the symbol.

“And to think Michael Ballack, a German, will be wearing a poppy on his shirt today,” said Sky’s Martin Tyler, who sounded a touch unimpressed by United’s decision, but mercifully stopped short of crooning “Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler”.

Then we had a parade of old soldiers, during which the Chelsea faithful sang Rule Britannia, while their United counterparts countered with, well, “United! United! United!”. At which point Chelsea said “boo”.

It wasn’t, perhaps, quite the dignified remembrance all concerned had hoped for.

As the Orwell fella put it, “serious sport is war minus the shooting”, which is generally true. And in fairness, to support the theory, Petr Cech and Edwin van der Sar were largely untroubled for the bulk of the first half.

United were, need it be said, robbed, with the referee making several decisions that bordered on poppycock. But Alex Ferguson was, predictably, magnanimous about it all. Having recently got in to a whole heap of trouble for suggesting that Alan Wiley was as fit for Premier League refereeing as Diana Ross is to play at tighthead, he bit his tongue when chatting to Sky’s Geoff Shreeves. (Well, apart from sighing: “You lose faith in refereeing sometimes”.)

Jamie was sympathetic, but congratulated the victors, noting that “Chelsea have so many facets they can hurt you wiff”.

Which is very true. The Nikolay Valuev of English football. (Touch wood).