TV VIEW:WHO SHOULD pop up on Sky Sports News, just before last night's game, only Phil Babb. He's a rusty old 39 now, but looks about 16, which is how many years it's been since he and amigos Gary Kelly and Jason McAteer played in that scoreless draw against Norway at the World Cup.
The SSN man, whose name we didn’t catch (but there’s a fair chance it’s Jeff), might have been thinking of that game when, while insisting he didn’t want to put Sky viewers off watching, suggested Ireland v Norway contests haven’t always been intoxicating.
Phil was well up for it, rejecting the notion there’s no such thing as an interesting friendly in international football, and was buzzing at the prospect of seeing Ireland’s new boys in action. If they ever got off the bench, that is. His work didn’t end there, he was on match-watch duty for SSN, bedecked in headphones, squeezed in beside Rob Lee (monitoring England v France) and Lawrie Sanchez (keeping an eye on Northern Ireland v Morocco).
When we switched over later to see how he was doing the action on his screen had him absorbed, which left us assuming he'd switched over to The Apprentice.
Back on Sky Sports 1 Julian Warren welcomed us to Dublin, even though he was in London and we were in Dublin, and introduced us to his panel for the evening, Keith Andrews and Kevin Kilbane.
Andrews slammed Giovanni Trapattoni’s team selection, wondering why on earth he hadn’t put Séamus Coleman and Jon Walters in from the start, while Kilbane insisted Greg Cunningham would never be good enough to take his place at left-back.
Ah no, just kiddin’. Picking not one, but two current internationals to analyse the performance of their team-mates and manager is a fair guarantee there won’t be too many biros chucked across the studio floor.
Over to Rob Hawthorne and his assistant in the commentary box, Ray Houghton, and a sight that would have made FAI eyes a touch sore: empty seats, thousands. That cheeky reporter who asked John Delaney earlier this week if the FAI had been in touch with the IMF yet . . . well.
At least Shane Long cheered up the resident faithful with that penalty, created by a fine through-ball from Lionel O’Shea.
“Great play by Longie,” said Andrews at half-time, Kilbane agreeing, but they doffed their caps to Morten Gamst Pedersen for his free-kick. “Shay couldn’t have done anything about it,” said Andrews.
“No, no, he couldn’t,” said Kilbane. If Julian was hoping for aggro he had the wrong lads.
News from Dublin, Jon Walters was coming on for the second half. “How will he cope with this big atmosphere,” Julian asked with a straight face. And down came the rain. All over Séamus Coleman, who, like ourselves, spent the evening in his seat.
A draw then? Ah, no. Bad cess to you Erik Huseklepp, kick the nation when we’re down.
“I certainly didn’t see this one coming,” said Babb. (Why, who was fired in the boardroom?) “Carved wide open!” (Lord Sugar being brutal?) “Fantastic ball from Pedersen!” (Ah, he’d switched back to the game). “Fizzes it along the six-yard box, says ‘go on then, whoever’s in there just put anything you’ve got on it and you’ll score.”
“We no deserve to lose, second half play only us,” insisted Trapattoni. Andrews and Kilbane agreed. “What about the Euro qualifying campaign,” asked Julian, showing Andrews the group table. “Well, we are where we are,” he said. We’ve heard that one before.
