TV View/Gerry Thornley: It was 5.10 p.m., Saturday, June 7th. Flicking between all the channels, for about a minute there was actually no sport. Sky were in simultaneous ad mode. RTÉ were between sporting gigs from Lansdowne Road and Thurles. The French tennis and the Derby were by now BBC blurs. It was a very disconcerting 60 seconds.

It made you remember the small things in life, like eating and drinking. Time enough, then, to grab a tinnie from the fridge and order a pizza. Delivery, of course. Dads around Ireland retorted to sons: "Whaddya mean do I wanna go outside and play football on the street?" It had been a long and confusing day. Winter sports had overlapped with summer sports, inducing a gluttonous feast of the stuff on the goggle box. Sky were showing the first of 12 rugby tests in June, they informed us with typical self-adoration.

But for rugby followers, it's the only place to be in summertime. Conor O'Shea joined Dewi Morris and Michael Lynagh on the "panel" and all agreed beforehand that Australia would win, but that it would be tighter than people expected, whoever people were.

Over in Perth, it was winter, but it looked better than our summer. By half-time, it was put to O'Shea that at 14-13 down Ireland were giving a good account of themselves. But O'Shea is proving himself to be an instinctively accurate analyst.

"I'd really be more worried now than I was before the game because they're falling off their tackles in a lot of ways. Australia have made a lot of bursts through the Irish defence and are gaining a lot of momentum, and I'd be slightly concerned for Ireland going into the second half." Later after the 45-16 shocker, O'Shea was in "I told you so" mode.

Over on RTÉ the clouds gathered early for the footie, and Gilesy and Eamo were even quicker with the self-fulfilling prophecies. Ol' traditionalists at heart, they like their teams to play 4-4-2. None of this in-the-hole theorising for them. By half-time, Eamo was in vintage form, the gloves hurting from having been on so long in Brian Kerr's honeymoon period.

"It's tactically poor, Bill, very poor," he began. "We're all over the place. We don't have width on our right-hand side. Damien Duff hasn't got into the game at all in the role that has been allotted to him. That's not working. If this was a Mick McCarthy team, people would be going crazy," he added, reflecting wistfully on those Mick-bashing days of yore.

Gilesy, needless to say, concurred. "I've never seen the free role work," he said, maintaining he wasn't "being wise after the event".

"Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella are not creative players and it's essential for them to have wide players," he added.

Zap. A quick interlude for the Derby, but even with six favourites we couldn't win it. Refuse To Bend? Blah. Refuse To Run more like. Clare Balding informed us that the 12 to 1 winner, Kris Kin, had been "the gamble of the day". But that was too late for those of us who'd been watching the footie.

Zap. By midway through the second half, RTÉ used an injury interlude to start selling the hurling. Well, we couldn't lose that. Over on Forever Blue Sky, Quinny and the gang were still at a different match. "They're doing ever so well . . . everything is going okay . . . we're moving the ball around well, it will come," Quinny assured us and, in fairness, he had highlighted the threat of Stephen Carr's diagonal through balls.

At the end he was "delighted" for everybody, especially for Kerr. "His team kept doing the right things . . . I really take great heart from that performance." Back in their studio, Big Cas pined (as he would) for 4-4-2 but generally he and Razor were similarly upbeat.

But it was a different planet on Overcast RTÉ. "A very lucky win from a very bad performance," said Eamo, refusing to bend. "One of the worst performances I've ever seen from an Irish team, and I've seen a few. All that nonsense is rubbish," he said sniffily of Irish supporters celebrating a last-ditch win.

During this long, exhausting day, there was a sighting of Castres v Munster, circa 2002. Then later, Republic of Ireland v Portugal, 2001. Was it dehydration, or a mirage? Had life become one confused, sporting blur? No. Sanity restored. Bizarrely it turned out that RTÉ were showing old reruns in "The Sports Files" series. Enuff already.

Mouth dry, opening the blinds and peering through closing eyelids, rays of sunshine illuminated the living room. Kids were indeed playing street football. Neighbours did their gardens and reported hours of warm, hot sunshine. Summer had arrived, and who knows, gone again. Damn, missed it. Me and Eamo both.