TV VIEW Theyr'e getting closer folks. Slowly but surely, Gilesy and Dunph are snaking towards each other along RTE's chaise-longue. Pretty soon the lights will darken and we'll be in to the slow set with soccer's Sonny & Cher whispering sweet off-sides to each other.

Happy days will be here again.

It has been very sad watching the two of them in recent weeks. Ever since the clash over whether Roy Keane really is without blemish, Gilesy and Dunph have drifted dramatically apart, both intellectually and literally.

Remember the time they appeared on the Premiership and it looked like a fish-eye lens would be needed to get them into the one shot? Giles was nearest to Bill but Dunphy might as well have been in Lucan. It was so sad. Rommel led Panzer attacks through smaller spaces. But things are slowly changing.

Compared to weeks ago, the seating arrangements are now almost Beatrix Potter-like in their cosiness. The two boys and Bill are chattering away so casually again there might even be a kettle boiling away under the desk.

It's almost like the old days; if only Cher - sorry, Eamon - could stop being such a bitch.

Thursday's delayed start to the UEFA Cup match between Blackburn and Celtic was ideal for a lengthy analysis of the damning Genesis report and Dunphy was in his element.

The classic, pursed lip pose suggested he had tucked into a sizeable canary and the defiance in those rheumy eyes said he was going to masticate over it at length.

"Irish football owes Roy Keane a huge debut . . . He is vindicated by this."

Overall, no one can really argue that Eamon is entitled to his crow, but with Giles looking uncomfortable, he still couldn't resist a couple of digs at his old pal.

"John, Noel Cantwell, great players, they used to pretend they had injuries so they could stay at home," he barbed, in reference to their own playing days for Ireland.

"Er, yes," said Gilesy, looking like he might like to inflict a very real injury on the hyper-active pup next to him. "There were many matches I could have played and didn't. And at that time, that was my protest."

"It took one man with the bottle to stand up to them. You walked away and then came back," Eamon darted before damning the rest of the Irish squad in Saipan for leaving Keane on his own.

"Did you read Niall Quinn's book?"

"No," replied Gilesy, a mite sulky by now.

"You should."

"Why?"

"Because it tells you what it was like."

In a guilty sort of way it was riveting stuff, sort of like an argument next door you can't help but hear. Certainly it was a damn sight more interesting than the match.

"I'm saying Blackburn to hammer them," said Eamon, inviting the inevitable Celtic victory.

Even with the two of them clawing each other's eyes out, Giles and Dunphy are still miles ahead of anyone else in the craft of sports punditry: not that the competition seem to give a hoot.

Has anyone at the BBC actually sat down and listened to what Brian Moore comes out with during England's rugby internationals? Racehorses have worn smaller blinkers. There isn't even a pretence of objectivity.

Australia's third try on Saturday, by a player defying the entire England team and his own name - our old friend Elton Flatley - was dismissed by Moore behind a lengthy whinge about how the ref hadn't played advantage a couple of moves earlier.

Commentator Eddie Butler often sounds as calm as a man cycling around the pit of doom with his trousers on fire, but he was Clement Freud himself compared to Moore.

"It would have been better if we'd tried to get seven points there," seethed Moore.

"A little 'we' creeping in there, Brian?"

"Absolutely!"

Funnily enough, the quality at the Beeb's live game was a helluva lot better. Steve Rider still looks like boredom personified, but Jonathon Davis burbled and squeaked on cue and a real jewel was unveiled in Joel Stranksy.

The former Springbok outhalf is one of those rare South Africans who can walk upright and open his mouth without mangling the English language.

"One of the most inept performances I've ever seen from a South African team," Stranksy decided, before deriding the officials for the two Scottish tries.

Crucially however, he added: "The tries were wrong but the score isn't."

God alone knows what Moore would have said in the same circumstances. Probably put on armour and made for Agincourt.