The seasons are turning for the field sports which dominate in this land, with the curtains finally closing on the football Championship and the English soccer season hotting up with the onset of winter.
The weekend's soccer talk centred on the blatant dive by Surrey referee Paul Alcock after he became enmeshed with Sheffield's Paolo Di Canio. Given that referees have been specifically instructed to stamp out diving, it was an absurdly irresponsible theatrical indulgence by Mr Alcock.
Italian import Di Canio, notable mainly for his Lilywhite boots, had taken it upon himself to get in on a bit of a rumble against Arsenal, and looked to have the situation under control following a robust shove on Patrick Vieira and a tidy little sideswipe at Martin Keown's calf. Paul Alcock wisely stood back during all of this, but, once matters were resolved, he astonishingly decided to produce the dreaded red. With infamous Gallic and Latin temperaments intoxicating the grim Sheffield air, matters were bound to take a passionate turn. Sure enough, Di Canio went all Shakespeare at the sight of the red, falling against referee Alcock's chest with all the despair of a lover spurned. Mr Alcock, in turn, invoked a touch of Sam Peckinpah to the scene, stumbling and flailing backwards as though he had found himself on the business end of a bunch of six shooters toted by the Wild Bunch.
The entire sequence was analysed in some detail by RTE's own mavericks, Bill, Johnny and Eamon, who found themselves gunning from the same outpost after a good few years plodding through the wilderness.
"They said it would never happen," whooped a jubilant Bill at the outset of the Premiership, referring to the historic and welcome reunion. (Who, precisely, said it would never happen?) Maybe they slipped Paolo a small inducement to ensure a controversial opening, but whatever the reason, the show started with fireworks. The trio happily wore out the tape on the outrageous shoving/diving incident. "I've never seen anything like that, even in the time when I played," confirmed Gilesy in a tone which suggested he had witnessed some pretty grisly scenes. (But we forget: this was a man who used to tog off with Big Jack).
Eamon blasted referee Alcock's show of passivity in the build-up to the shove. "Someone could have been shot in the back on the pitch," he gasped, lending a worrying credence to the whole Wild Bunch possibility.
The future was ominous, they decided, for Paolo, with neither pundit reckoning that they would see the Italian playing Premiership soccer again this season. (Would that Roy Evans advise Friedel, Carragher and Heggem to administer a hefty shove on the first ref they catch sight of and all may be saved yet).
Onwards the show trotted, using a system Sky TV might do well to study: Bill aired valid, reasoned points and his critics, looking ever more like the two old guys from the Muppet Show, offered intelligent, thought-provoking points of view.
Ruud Gullit came up for dissection and, not surprisingly, he was held in scant regard by Mr Dunphy. The Dutchman was, he declared, just a present for the fans, albeit a "sexy and exciting" one. "He's a PR man, a legend in his own mind," cried Eamon, warming to the task of assassination. He went on to assert that Ruud would never stick the winter in Newcastle (which, if anything, just smacks of old-fashioned common-sense).
Johnny Giles just shook his head and acknowledged that his old adversary was back, tickling Bill's sense of mischief. "Go on, get off the fence, Eamon, tell us what you think," he admonished with a good humoured grin. All is well in Montrose.
Down the corridors, even as the trio were cracking wise about soccer, Pat Kenny was doing a turn for the All-Ireland hopefuls. The format for the show is based around the division of the two relevant sets of supporters into opposing sections and to analyse the quirks of the game with teasers such as "Who's going to do it then?"
Predictably enough, the fans in question - laced with former players for a degree of expertise - roundly asserted that their own team would "do it", but there was a general consensus that it would be "a close thing".
This can have done little to ease the nerves of the teams, who doubtlessly were tuning in eager for some sort of forecast on the result.
Pat went live to Tony O'Donoghue, who was reporting from downtown Dublin. In a sadistic touch, he had Paidi O Se standing beside him. Hasn't Paidi suffered enough what with losing his All-Ireland crown without being dragged to Dublin to stand in the pissin' rain listening to the Sawdoctors?
But he grinned manfully as Pat inquired as to the weather. "Is it lashin' ", he asked a sodden Tony. Tony looked a bit blank and silence reigned for a few seconds. "My prediction?", he gasped, struggling with transmission problems.
He may as well as have given his prediction because Paidi sure wasn't about to. Planting vague claims to having "roots" in Galway and more obvious references to ties in Kildare, he opted to retain the "they'll never break me" front. He declined to give a prediction. Controversial.
Finally, ITV concluded their two-part documentary on the life of Alex Ferguson. All in all, the Scot seemed like a decent enough old skin, with little anecdotes provided by his brother and plenty of behind the scenes footage.
What was most interesting, though, were the tactics deployed by one of the most successful managers of his generation. At one point, his advice to the stars was, "Don't let yourselves down. Don't even f****n' attempt it." Fair enough, gaffer, seeing as you put it like that.
