The Republic of Ireland team may have finished Wednesday evening as the standard bearers for Group Nine of the World Cup qualifying round, but it was evident that, as far as the FAI is concerned, the players remain second-class citizens.

After expressing grave reservations about the travel conditions for the first leg of Ireland's away trip in Cyprus, Roy Keane was made aware of the nuances of an Irish solution to an Irish problem. FAI leader Bernard O'Byrne appeared on RTE to explain that the situation had been resolved for the journey from Cyprus to Barcelona, when the entire party flew "in an equal level of discomfort".

Expressing nothing short of dismay that Keane was unhappy with the initial travel arrangements, he declared that the whole thing was as random as seats 1E, 18F and 32C. "No one gave any thought to the seating arrangements," he spluttered, before confirming that any one of the FAI officials would have been happy to swap their front tier seats with the players. It was all down to chance, he reckoned.

"Yeah, it just so happened that 18 first class seats were occupied by the blazers," snorted Eamon Dunphy back in studio, offering the nation his most withering grimace. The seating allocation is just the latest in an interesting history of quirks involving our soccer heroes and travel. As Eamo had it, Irish footie players have long been treated appallingly when it comes to travelling on international duty, and might still be shovelling coal on Europe's rail links had it not been for the heroic intervention of one John Giles. "It's not the first time this has happened, and John Giles did a lot to improve the players status," affirmed Dunphy with a pious glance towards his sidekick.

Gilesy is nothing if not a modest man, but surely some elaboration was required on the jovial gambit from host Bill O'Herlihy, who casually informed us that Gilesy had, in his footie kicking days, journeyed "from Poland to East Germany in a luggage compartment".

Giles could but smile coyly at this intriguing revelation, with its whiff of subterfuge and Cold War derring-do. It is a subject that demands a little more insight, if not a full-blown investigation from the Prime Time team. All sorts of issues could arise. Was it a roomy luggage compartment? Might it not suffice for the taller Irish players for future journeys? Did any official offer to swap places, or even store some luggage under their seat?

It was hard not to feel jet-lagged after such distressing talk as the players made their way onto the aptly named Mini Estadie in Barcelona. RTE had opted for a straight swap in the commentary seat, with George Hamilton stepping back in for Darragh Maloney. It is unclear how George travelled to the Spanish city, but he was evidently unsettled by the experience.

Abandoning the traditional sportscasters' greeting of "Hello and welcome from (in this case) beautiful Barcelona", George instead opted for the admirably fresh "Yeah and red, green, white, blue. One, two three, four."

The opening had a soothing ring to it, even if it had nothing at all to do with the impending match. But it had been a long week and everyone, it seemed, was anxious to just sting the poor Andorrans for as many goals as possible and head off into the sunset on the first, if not the best, available seat.

For the first half-hour, though, it didn't prove so simple, and Jim Beglin, for one, began to panic.

"Oh God," he moaned, "I do hope it's not going to be one of those nights," as Mattie Holland sent a good chance scuttling wide.

With the Andorrans playing with a flat back 10, the only possible answer, reckoned Jim, was "to thrown the big man in".

Even if the Irish race is transformed into a race of pygmies in some future millennium, we will always have a gangly and deceptively skilful sort to throw in at centre forward. This time, the big man was Gary Doherty, presumably the player most severely affected by the adverse flying conditions. Having ironed out his limbs, he went about knocking down balls and sent a nice ball through for Keano to develop into a penalty situation. The walls came down, and at half-time the talk was about the Irish captain.

"There is a majesty about him, a stature about him," gushed Eamo with teary conviction. Nobody demurred.

In the second half, the camera lingered on a sombre Irish fan who had dyed his goatee green but clearly felt it was no laughing matter. We saw several doomed Elvis impersonators who had taken to wandering around the stands. It was that type of game.

Somehow, the Irish managed to squeeze through the Andorran population to bag another couple of goals, and afterwards the talk in studio stopped just short of the likely exchange rate on the yen next summer. The trifling matter of Holland and Portugal was pushed to one side. Eamo, however, did make it clear that we wouldn't actually win the cup, hampered as we are by the presence of several "duckeggs" in the team.

"Who are these duckeggs?" demanded Bill, revelling in the opportunity to repeat the word.

"Gary Breen for one," flashed Eamo. Not a man for fences.

Late on Wednesday night, a news bulletin suggested, in a cash-conscious report redolent of the old days, that we could all start saving for Japan. The Dutch and Portuguese, was the inference, would be a pushover. And it may be true. These foreigners, as we all know, might travel first class. But they do not travel well.