Kerr steers charitable course amid car-crash viewing

TV View: Ronnie Whelan, John Aldridge and Matt Holland were all pleasantly relaxed at 5pm on Saturday. In their seats in the TV3 studio, alongside presenter Stephen Cullinane, the three former amigos in the green shirt were looking forward to Ireland finally launching their bid to qualify for Euro 2008 against an island team from that noted holiday destination Cyprus.

All three looked as though they had taken a bit of the sun in Limassol. All were chirpy and full of goodwill for the manager Stephen Staunton (confined to the stands because of a touchline ban) and his team. All were understandably positive.

"If you don't pick up your six points against Cyprus and six points against San Marino, you've got no chance of qualifying," noted Whelan, who at that stage had clearly not considered the prospect of five goals going past Paddy Kenny.

"There's really no excuses with nine Premiership players in the team," offered Cullinane.

"The heads (Cyprus) won't go down until they feel they're not getting the run of the ball or until they go two-nil down," said Whelan with some insight, having gleaned knowledge of the Cypriot temperament on his travels.

But the absence of goalkeeper Shay Given was playing on Whelan's mind: "It's a worry that he's not playing," said the former Liverpool man.

By then the director had cut to Cyprus and to a pitch that looked as though it might have doubled as a carpark. The near-empty stadium was ghostly apart from one section, where, it seemed, everyone was crammed.

So we yawned a little and reached for the crisps - and Stephen Ireland scored.

"That should settle them down a bit," said Brian Kerr sagely, the former manager commentating with Trevor Welch.

Two minutes later Cyprus had equalised. "Just seconds after taking the lead, that's a terrible blow," added Kerr. "It seems to be all or bust at both ends."

A colleague who once contracted a virulent strain of food poisoning described his experience as "a real double-ender". Within seconds of kick-off we were getting an inkling of just what a real double-ender we were in for.

In a flash Ireland were 2-1 down and the chances for Cyprus were arriving faster than a Ryanair turnaround.

"But we are not dead and buried by any means," proffered Kerr, attempting to ease the racing minds of all those watching punters who thought Ireland were truly and consistently playing like double-enders.

"I mean he (the Cypriot goalscorer) was just hanging around after the last set-piece. He's an attacking left-back," said Kerr in disbelief.

Welch confirmed the worst. "Yes," he informed us, "that's his first goal for his country."

Kerr could clearly not believe what he was watching. The commitment, the tactics, the composure, the marking, the communication, the organisation - all the things he knew must have gone into preparing the team were, well, up with Stan in the stands.

"Once we lose it, it's helter-skelter," said Kerr as 45 minutes passed in a blizzard of yellow cards and goal chances.

"Dear me, it could have been five," said Aldridge, unaware of how keen his prescience. "It's as if we picked four players off the street and asked them to play at the back."

When the third goal went in, from a penalty, it seemed Kerr's bona fide Dublin accent was getting stronger by the minute.

"It was a nuttin ball," he observed. "Just knocked up the line. Nuttin. Shudda bin dealt with better."

By then the Irish performance was challenging vocabulary. The phrases of doom and gloom were threadbare. Negative adjectives of choice had been exhausted.

"Well, it's very hard to put a brave face on this," said Welch as the fifth goal arrived. "A real hammering here. Really, it has been a no-show in Nicosia tonight."

Poor Kerr. Driven out of office, in part by negative publicity, was finding himself dangerously close to becoming a critic, not an analyst: "It's not nice to have to say, but it's embarrassing to be five-two down here. It's depressing to be five-two down in the second match of the group."

In the studio, Aldridge was getting emotional: "All the respect we've earned over the years is gone. That hurts. That hurts," said the Scouser. "The lads will have to look at themselves in the mirror."

Holland was groping for positives in a sea of negatives. Whelan's neck was reddening.

"Me and John, we played against Liechtenstein years ago and drew nil-nil and I didn't think we could play worse again."

It was a sporting wreck. If TV3 could guarantee such compelling car-crash viewing every week, they'd get the masochists as well as the sports fans. And through it all, not one glove - not one - was laid on Stan-in-the-stands by his former team-mates.