'Limerick' has the Lions' share of the squad - or does it?

TV VIEW:IT WASN'T really until Tuesday night that the debate surrounding the selection of the Irish (and British) Lions got a bit heated. Until then it seemed less than contentious, with the Setanta crew of Neil Francis, Donal Lenihan and Ciarán Fitzgerald having to concede "common sense had been applied".

That, of course, was disappointing, because we’d tuned in to Setanta that afternoon in the hope of seeing the mother of all scraps over several gobsmacking choices/non-choices.

The only one that raised an eyebrow – Neil’s eyebrow, to be exact – was the selection of England hooker Lee Mears. “It just means Jerry Flannery will be the Test hooker,” he said, in a tribute to the Bath man.

All three panellists had been close enough with their squad predictions, but they’d all been Lions in their time so they should know about these things.

Daire O’Brien, though, needed to ask Neil for confirmation that he had actually been a Lion, because no one could remember.

“I was,” he said, “I got a phone call out of the blue, one of the living dead rang up from the Home Unions and asked if I was free.”

He still has the jersey, a spotlessly clean one, too, because he never got on the field of play for the (unofficial) game against France in 1989. But still, he was a Lion.

The ceremony itself was made memorable by the dulcet tones of Lions tour manager Gerald Davis, the Susan Boyle of rugby, who has so melodious a Welsh accent you end up humming along as he speaks.

“They love rugby with a fervour and a passion in South Africa, but then . . . so do we,” he said, managing to make the statement sound musical and menacing all at the same time.

Over on Sky Sports News, as you might have heard by now, former Lions coach Dick Best was making quite an impression with his contribution to the discussion, opting for Delon Armitage over Tommy Bowe in his Test side. Why?

“You have always got to have a coloured boy in the team,” he said. Never was a man more appropriately named. Dick, that is, not Best.

Anyway, it all heated up that night on TV3 with Vincent Browne’s attempted Limerickisation of the Lions. “It’d make you proud to be a Limerick . . . sorry . . . Irish man, even for a Leinster man, wouldn’t it, Jim?” he asked guest Jim Glennon, he of Ireland, Leinster (and Fianna Fáil) fame.

Jim accused Vincent of “creative accounting” for claiming there were five Limerick men in the Lions, insisting that David Wallace is a Cork man.

"Put the Limerick Leaderback up there," said Vincent, pointing to the front page, which claimed Wallace, Paul O'Connell, Keith Earls, Jerry Flannery and Alan Quinlan for his native county.

“Where does David Wallace live?” Vincent asked Jim.

“Where do you live?” Jim asked Vincent.

“Are you a Limerick man or a Dublin man? Listen, there are four from Cork, and four from Limerick.”

Jim looked for some support from his fellow panellist, Justine McCarthy of the Sunday Tribuneand Cork, and he got it. "We all know David Wallace is from Cork – he's far too handsome to be from Limerick," she said.

Vincent – no kidding – was left speechless.

Only temporarily, though.

“We have a text message here from DJ in Newport, Tipperary, and he’s saying that Alan Quinlan is from Tipp. Yes, he is – he’s from southern Tipperary, which is part of the greater Limerick area, so that qualifies him as Limerick.”

Jim and Justine looked at each other, looked at Vincent, then looked at each other again. Their expressions were in the shape of a question mark.

“We don’t want any more text messages challenging the fact that there are five Limerick men in the Lions’ squad,” said Vincent, before spotting one from Seán in Blarney. “God, this is pathetic – Seán says Paul O’Connell’s father is from Cork. Who cares? What’s that got to do with anything?”

Roy Keane, of course, is now based in the Limerick suburb of Ipswich (their rivals have dubbed them The Tractor Boys because they regard them as muck savages) where, if they win promotion next season, they'll probably celebrate with a rousing rendition of There is an Isle.

"Hello Tractor Boy," said, "Jose Mourinho" on Setanta's Special 1 TVwhen "Roy" came on the line.

“All credit to agricultural machinery, to be fair,” said Roy.

We laughed, loudly, but not as deafeningly as when we saw "Wayne Rooney", complete with wig, doing a Susan Boyle on Special 1 TV.

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by, when hope was high and life worth living,” Scouse-style wasn’t quite as lilting as Gerald Davis, but it was class, like.

Wayne, lest you’ve forgotten, is from Croxteth, Co Greater Limerick. And anyone who saw him play on Saturday will confirm: he’s a Lion, like.