TV View/Brian O'Connor It must have been because we were playing France. Either that, or the cheese-eating surrender monkeys had peppered the Perrier. But whatever it was it had Tom McGurk tripping.

"The French are always hugely welcome," he opined. "They buy all our smoked salmon, take it home, and we have none for the weekend!"

What? Now, normally Tom can be relied upon to gee up George Hook and emphasise a word where you least expect it. But on Saturday, the rules were out, man.

"That's the Fields Of Athenry they're singing," he explained to Phillipe St Andre. "That's the song we sing when the witchdoctors come out!"

What? Tom was so out there, man, he made Jim Sherwin sound reasonable. And that takes doing. Once again we were treated to a musical critique from the man in the commentary perch.

"Oh, well sung," Jim ventured after Amhrán na bhFiann. After Ireland's Call, he went all Smashy & Nicey on us.

"That's the way it should be sung, with spirit, and fizz and vim!" This about a politically correct dirge with all the musical virtue of a Russian pop song. Those roaring their heads off in the crowd might as well have been singing The Boys in Green. But Jim had hit his stride.

It helped that the referee's mic had given up the ghost. Normally Jim expresses a view, such as a penalty being awarded for offside, that is almost immediately contradicted by a Southern Hemisphere voice screaming for a hungry prop to release his teeth from a screeching outhalf's buttocks.

But not this time. The ref stopped the game to go to the sideline, where a spark in a suit was waiting to connect him up and bitch about the wiring.

"His gear needs attention," Jim intoned. "I'm sorry to see the ref's equipment is still not working," he continued in the second half.

The sense of freedom became intoxicating. Jim threw the commentator's charter out the door and went freestyle.

"Putting their bodies on the line, prepared to die for their country," he soared. "Desperation defence stuff, but it's organised and certainly not panicked," he shrilled. "And yer man wants to put it out, and he has, and that's it!" climaxed Jim at the end as "yer man", aka Peter Stringer, hoofed the ball into the stands.

Back in the place where the incense burned, George Hook was ready for the "told you so" merchants. Ireland had won but David Humphreys played crap was George's line and by God he was sticking to it.

Earlier in the week RTÉ news had sniffily reported that Humphreys wouldn't speak to them, presumably because of earlier Hook comments. Petulant stuff from a professional and George wasn't slow to tell him.

"He is paid to play rugby. I'm paid to have an opinion," he boomed.

It sounds like easy money, but voicing an opinion can leave a pundit feeling pretty bare back in the real world. Or so the pundits tell us. But at least George has the merit of consistency.

"I am paid to have an opinion. Whether it's right or wrong is irrelevant. What's important is having an opinion."

Which is fair enough actually, TV being a medium where fluency counts for a lot more than substance. But it would help George if just once in a while he got it right: just once.

"A possible half time score could have been 20-12 for France . . . if Laporte plays the right match France will win . . . if France batten down the hatches and kick the living you know what out of it they will win."

That's just a sample of Hook's half-time analysis and flamboyantly entertaining it was too. Except it was wrong, again.

"Why is everybody saying Ireland have a problem?" asked Brent Pope with boring but undeniable logic.

George was having none of it, especially in regard to Humphreys. "Ireland didn't play well. At fly-half, he didn't kick well and didn't control the match," he argued, and it was hard not to warm to a guy so prepared to swim against a flood of feel-good celebrations.

Earlier in the day Celtic and Rangers fought out yet another tribal squabble in which everyone was invited to feel the atmosphere. A central element of the game was how Rangers centre half Amoruso had described an opponent he had a spat with earlier in the week.

"A crazy Celtic fan," was the phrase used, and he got roundly booed for it every time he got within sniffing distance of the ball. The BBC's Pat Nevin tried to help him out. "His English is not so good. He said he meant the wild Celtic fans, but it got lost in translation."

Thank God for that then.