Damien Duff disappoints viewers looking for an old serial killer

Virgin Media, you’d imagine, were mightily chuffed with how their exclusive contract with the League of Ireland kicked off, an eventful weekend of coverage of the start of the new season culminating in that record crowd of 33,208 at the Aviva Stadium, where Bohemians got the better of their best buds Shamrock Rovers.

“I came back to Ireland in 2015, if you’d told me then that the league would have a crowd like this, I’d have laughed at you,” said Keith Treacy to Dave McIntyre before the game, the fella nigh on pinching himself.

Mind you, Virgin Media might have concluded they can’t keep all of their viewers happy all of the time. There’s a chance their switchboard lit up with complaints on Friday evening from those who had tuned in for a documentary about a Massachusetts serial killer carpenter from the 1960s. Only to be greeted by Damien Duff pottering around Tolka Park in the dark.

“You’d never think he had it in him,” the viewers might have said, before realising they were watching an Airtricity game interrupted by a power cut.

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“If only the league was sponsored by an electrical company,” said Tommy Martin as he and his panel of Keith, Ruaidhri Higgins and Vinny Perth chatted through a half-time break that was heading towards the hour mark. They had, at least, four goals to dissect, but there are only so many times you can ask, “what was the ‘keeper thinking?”.

Come the end of the marathon, Tommy promised the lads “time and a half” for their efforts, although you hoped they’d also been treated to some nosh to keep them going.

CBS Sports, for example, make sure their pundits are well fed during their Champions League coverage, presenter Kate Scott revealing what takeaway Micah Richards had ordered to the studio last Wednesday: “Lemon chicken, salt and pepper chips, sweet and sour chicken, chicken curry, special fried rice, crispy spare ribs with spicy salt, chilli oil and seven deep fried chicken wings.”

Cost? €88.50. Keith, Ruaidhri and Vinny would have been happy just to share the seven chicken wings between them.

Anyway, the new League of Ireland season is up and running. “Cameras, action . . . shame about the lights,” said Tommy before he bid us adieu, at which point a montage of the game’s highlights was played, soundtracked by a lady crooning “turn up the lights in here, baby”. Enough with the lights already.

Happily, there were no such malfunctions at the Aviva come Sunday, this time Brian Kerr and Ian Morris joining Tommy in the studio, him probably on time and two-thirds for his weekend’s work.

The size of the crowd and the atmosphere about the place suggested that the “problem child” has developed into a bit of a prodigy, it being 1946 since a throng of that magnitude attended a league game.

Bohs’ Ross Tierney decided the game with his first-half goal, although modesty prompted him to suggest “I think me da probably picked the man of the match” when Phil Egan spoke to him after he was awarded his gong. That prompted Tommy to clarify that Keith, who chose him for the honour, is not, in fact, Ross’s da.

Rovers, incidentally, finished the game with two 16-year-olds up front, although Conference League history-maker Michael Noonan might have felt like a veteran alongside sub Victor Ozhianvuna, who was 15 until five weeks ago.

Manchester United’s bench for their trip to Spurs resembled a bit of a creche too, although Ruben Amorim’s faith in the quality of the club’s academy output was somewhat emphasised by him only bringing on one of them for the last two minutes of the game.

And when you leave Casemiro on the pitch for 91 minutes, when a deep fried chicken wing would have had more impact, you really don’t believe you can win anything with kids. Even a point away to Spursy.

“Embarrassing ... shocking ... you wouldn’t see these kind of tactics in under nines or 10s football,” said Gary Neville in that bass-level voice he uses when he’s struggling to believe what he’s seeing.

Ruben, you’d guess, was hoping for a power cut. It wasn’t to be. But you’d wonder if the lights are going out on his brief enough reign.