SIDELINE CUT:The ferocious front-spin the Irish goalkeeper put on the ball in Italy means he scored the goal and thus renders the row between Keane and Hunt irrelevant

THE HUNT/KEANE goal debate must be the talk of Europe by now. There was a photograph of Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, boarding a plane in London yesterday. The generally sunny and effervescent couple look drawn and tired; you can tell from the tension on their faces that they are deeply divided on whether Robbie or Noel got the all-important “touch”.

Like everyone else, they probably just happened upon the debate while flicking around the sports channels. The diplomatic urge in the President would have persuaded him to side with Robbie Keane, the senior statesman of the Irish team while the First Lady’s reputation for fighting the cause of the underdog would have inclined her towards the claims of Mr Hunt.

The mystery of who scored Ireland’s goal against Italy is set to become one of those maddening fascinations. If you see the slow-motion footage even once, you are doomed. For whatever reason, that goal – the sheer weirdness of it – forces you to watch it over and over until you are absolutely clear which of our forwards deceived the Italian defence. I have watched the tape about 15,000 times and have argued loudly and passionately with the television on behalf of both strikers. Then, just before dawn yesterday morning, with the aid of T-square and a basic book on Pythagoras, it became abundantly clear the true identity of the goal scorer is none other than Shay Given.

The last thing this country needs now is another “civil war” emanating from the always-entertaining drama that is the Irish football team. There were shades of past glory to be gleaned from Wednesday night’s heroics in Bari, what with the rain, the cult figure on the Irish sideline and the nerve-wracking need, the absolute requirement of an Irish goal by whatever means necessary.

And it was a quintessentially Irish goal that paid due homage to the immortal Packie-Bonner-Niall Quinn double act against Holland back in 1990. Only the Irish team have managed to reduce the beautiful game to the brutal economic policy that has the ball travelling the entire length of the pitch and a goal scored against the world champions with just two kicks. Bang-bang-goal. It is hard to do that in Subbuteo, let alone a real match.

In that spine-tingling match against Holland, Bonner affected a startling grimace – throughout the country children under the age of seven, already strung-out on an afternoon of coke and crisps, started wailing in fear – before he hoofed the football down the field.

Much of Ireland’s repressed angst and disappointment – the sense of being trapped together on a wet island on the edge of Europe – was contained in Packie’s metamorphosis. For a moment, it looked like the mild-mannered Donegal man was about to do a David Banner on it and burst out of his Umbro ’keeper’s shirt.

Thankfully, though, he concentrated all his rage into lamping the ball as far downfield as was humanly possible. “Big Niall” helped it into the net. That goal was the apotheosis of Ireland’s football philosophy under “Big Jack”.

It was described as “route one” football – and its effectiveness has been hardwired into our subconscious ever since. Particularly in the case of Shay Given, the latest affable Donegal man to excel on the international goalkeeping circuit. Given is an even greater study in modesty than his predecessor. But if you look closely, Shay did scowl slightly before he sent delivered his own fateful, direct ball into the heart of the splendid Italian defence.

It was the kind of timeless, mischievous priceless goalkeeper’s pass that keeps the garrison game alive and well in Ireland. It spent so long in the air that there was time for a few quick Hail Mary’s before it descended into the hopeful path of the Irish attackers – in this case Messrs Hunt and Keane.

What happened in the subsequent 1.8 seconds is impossible to decipher. Both of our striking aces approach the dropping football in conventional manner, attacking the space and aligning their frames to co-ordinate the way they address the football and thereby achieve the maximum velocity when they actually go to “pull the trigger”.

For one alarming nano-second, it looks as if the Irish men are about to crash into one another, Ollie and Stanley style. But they both swivel in unison and appear to merge into one another and the next thing we know, the football is nestling in the Italian net.

A nation celebrates. The Italians look petulant and beautiful. Both the Irishmen wheel away in celebration, believing they have scored the goal. Keane has the distinct advantage here: he is team captain and top scorer, with 37 goals for Ireland.

Noel Hunt is brand new on the scene; in the heat of the moment, some of his team-mates may not even be entirely sure of his name. The gang celebrates with Keane. In the immediate aftermath, there is some loose talk that Hunt may have at least contributed to the strike, that he may have got a “touch”. But that just seems like harmless conjecture. Irish goals are rarely cleanly hit, polished things. They are usually achieved through a desperate tangle of bodies, any time between the 79th and 92nd minute of an international and usually require several slow motion replays before it can be ascertained who has scored.

Sometimes, the hero of the hour will be momentarily in the dark as to what he has just achieved: the cameras will capture him lost in the moment, maybe stumbling backward as he loses his balance in the maelstrom of a corner kick, his face suddenly clouding in confusion as he feels something thumping off the back of his head or glancing against his shoulder or brushing – not disagreeably — against his buttocks. And then our hero will grin in delight when he turns around, realising that the ball in the opposition net.

With Irish goals, the football rarely smacks off the net a la vintage Brazil: rather, it just happens to go over the line. That is the kind of Irish goal we know and love: modest in origin, unlikely in execution and born out of a deep communal need as much as football craft.

But now, a row beckons. “Keano” has claimed the Italian goal and has gone down in the Fifa books as the man who owns it. But young Hunt knows Irish goals – let alone those scored against the reigning champions – are hard to come by. He has spoken in the argot of a young trades union official about his intention to fight his cause. This one may go all they way to the court of human rights.

If you look hard though, it is evident that both men missed the football, that it came about through the ferocious front-spin that Shay Given placed on the ball, causing it to “kick” forward with the magical effect that Greg Norman used to achieve on the fairways of Augusta. It was Given’s goal, in other words. At least we better hope it was. Because otherwise the Robbie Keane/Noel Hunt row has all the makings of another bitter and prolonged national feud. And it begs the more disturbing question: if neither man got a “touch”, was it really even a goal?

“A nation celebrates. The Italians look petulant and beautiful. Both the Irishmen wheel away in celebration, believing they have scored the goal. Keane has the advantage here: he is team captain and top scorer