TV View: It's a disquieting fact for those of us who reckon it can't be more than, oooh, six years since that Michael Kiernan wibbly wobbly wonder of a drop goal but, brace yourselves: that was the year that Everton last won the English league title. Exactly: streuth!

A bygone age, then, when men with hair-dos like Brian O'Driscoll's hunted Tyrannosaurus Rex with their bare hands, brought their kill home to their cave-bound wives, before retiring to the pub where they could enjoy a cigarette in peace with their pint. And Ireland's Call wasn't even composed then.

Ah, God be with the days.

And just to add to the time context: Wayne Rooney was eight months away from being born when Kiernan joined Finn MacCumhail, Cúchulainn and Johnny Logan in the pantheon of much-loved Irish supermen - as did Ciarán Fitzgerald, for asking his team-mates: "your pride, your pride, comrades - wherefore art thou's beeping pride?"

Fitzgerald - as evidenced by his appearance on Friday's Late Late Show and Saturday's Triple Crown knees-up with Tom McGurk and the lads - looks younger now than he did then. Moss Keane too - he's 55 now, in a few year's he'll be celebrating his 21st birthday.

Mind you, when Scotland were awarded that penalty after 32 seconds on Saturday Moss and Ciarán probably nearly looked their ages. Lord, oh Lord, do what you will to us, we will cope with the full force of your wrath (Luas, the postal strike, bin charges, the smoking ban, Michael McDowell, Chris de Burgh's latest album), but don't be so cruel as to make us overwhelming favourites in a sporting contest.

BBC commentator Nick Mullins had noted that Scotland coach Matt Williams's selection task was akin to "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic", but his chosen 15 remained afloat at Lansdowne Road a whole lot longer than was desirable.

All was well, though, by full-time, Gordon D'Arcy proving to be the visitors' iceberg, and, alongside O'Driscoll, he shared his post-match joy with Michael Lyster.

It took a whole two seconds to realise that D'Arcy and O'Driscoll had caddishly pre-arranged a routine that would see them slug out of highly visibly sponsored hi-energy drinks bottles after every answer they gave Lyster, presumably as pay-back for George Hook having a dig at O'Driscoll for taking full advantage of his position as Irish captain by slugging out of a highly -visibly sponsored hi-energy drinks bottle after every answer he gave to the national broadcaster following the Italian game.

Jeez, you'd be dizzy from it all.

England goalkeeper David James attempted a similar stunt a few years' back in a post-match Sky Sports interview and is still struggling to regain his credibility: Brian, be warned.

Back to the studio and Hook was busy slugging out of a "Hook's Hootch" bottle, a delicious touché to Lyster's interviewees. The tears flowing down the cheeks of McGurk and Brent Pope's faces necessitated an ad break. Didn't concentrate, but it very probably featured the Irish captain plugging and slugging out of a highly-visibly sponsored hi-energy drinks bottles.

A richly-deserved deal, not least for those tackles on Saturday, but Janey, BOD, there's a time and a place. As Ciarán Fitz might put it: "wherefore art thou's beeping pride?" Trust us, Moss Keane wouldn't have done it. But, in fairness, Moss's earlobe would barely be energised by a hi-energy sport's drink. All he needed for, eh, energisation was to see the whites of his opponents' eyes.

Which is what Roy Keane saw in the Highbury tunnel yesterday afternoon. The whites of Patrick Vieira's eyes, that is. When Keane shared a giggle with the referee and then smiled very loosely in Vieira's direction, before exchanging a brief chirpy word or six with the Arsenal captain, the Manchester United faithful raised a white flag, one that acknowledged the title was lost - and that was even before kick-off.

If there was even a sniff of a shout of beating Arsenal to the title Roy Keane wouldn't have shared the time of day with the ref or Vieira, he'd have been too busy concentrating on an imaginary spot in that tunnel that said: "kill".

"They don't come much bigger than this," Sky Sports' Richard Keyes had told us ahead of the game, a contention we now know he makes before the average clash of, say, Burton Albion and Leigh RMI in the fourth round of the Arthur Dillsbury's Finest Hot Pot in South-East Lancashire' Trophy.

Ninety minutes later? United had thrashed Arsenal 1-1, and now have as much chance of winning the league as Everton have of repeating their 1985 triumph. A realisation that induces such depressed lethargy not even a slug of a highly-visibly sponsored hi-energy drink would cure.