Loughnane hardly bowled over and Willis hurls rare old abuse

TV VIEW:UNBEKNOWN TO themselves, perhaps, it was a lively contest between Ger Loughnane and Bob Willis on Saturday, both of them putting up impassioned arguments for who deserved the most dog's abuse, the Clare forwards or the England bowlers.

The pair might have called for a direct battle between the two units to settle the debate, maybe over two legs, the first at Lords, the return at Cusack Park in Ennis – where, you’d imagine, the bowlers would find some life in the pitch. But such was their disdain for what they’d witnessed they’d have predicted the outcome, after extra-time, to be nought points to nought wickets. A futile exercise, then.

“Well,” said Michael Lyster at full-time, after his county, Galway, had humbled Ger’s, “from a Clare point of view, a disappointing night?”

Disappointing? Ger barely knew where to start. And you sensed it wasn’t going to be pretty. Cyril Farrell and Tomás Mulcahy, either side of him, held their respective breaths.

“Just absolutely terrible, Michael,” he said, almost snapping the pen he was wielding in his right hand. “None of the Clare spirit, the Clare fight, no sharpness in their play, no great intensity, no plan at all among the forwards, totally confused, everyone just playing on their own.”

Well, that wasn’t too bad . . . oh, wait . . . “Going along like this every year, trouncings like this, it just can’t be allowed continue or else what was achieved in the past might as well never have been done.”

Strong words, but . . . oh, more . . . “It was disgusting to watch . . . complete rubbish. Today is the last day for five or six of those players, it is so disappointing . . . everybody in Clare will be totally demoralised after this.”

You can call Ger many things but the Jamie Redknapp of hurling punditry isn’t one of them. If he saw a fence he’d plough straight through it, regardless of the personal cost (in terms of losing even more friends in Clare, that kind of thing).

The only small mercy in it all was Clare hadn’t been on the wrong end of a scoreline that read 674-6 declared, with, say, Joe Canning getting 670 of the points.

“Well Bob, that was a grim day,” said Sky’s Charles Colville. “A grim day, Charles? It was much worse than that. Those who predicted 3-0, 3-1 for England in the series can now be led off to cloud cuckoo land.”

“A desperate, desperate performance,” Charles agreed. “Desperate,” said Bob, “seam bowlers clattered all over south Wales.”

“Yes,” sighed Charles.

The Telegraph’s Steve James, seated between Charles and Bob, watched this rally of anguish like a spectator at Wimbledon and then announced that he thought England would hold out for a draw. Charles and Bob thought his optimism was cute, but very, very silly.

Charles reminded Steve that this was only “the second time in history that five England bowlers conceded 100 runs in the same innings”. The first time was “was back in ’73 at Lords against the West Indies when such people as Arnold, Greig, Underwood, Illingworth . . . and him . . . went for over a hundred”.

“Thanks,” said him, aka Bob.

Some of our weekend pundits, though, were in chirpier form, Pat Spillane particularly impressed by Paddy Bradley who looked like he might go for a hundred himself against Monaghan, such was the Derry forward’s accuracy earlier on Saturday afternoon.

“The shortest line between A and B is still a straight line, not veering around the countryside,” said Pat, noting that Derry hadn’t taken the scenic route to victory, opting instead to travel as the crow flies.

Even David Brady on TV3 was giving credit where it was due, praising Dublin – “movie stars” he’d called them earlier in the Championship – for showing “a lot of liathróidí out there” against Kildare.

But back at Cardiff, Australia’s bowlers were struggling to clinch the Test, not even making good use of the new liathróid, England’s batsmen hanging on grimly. “Bread of heaven – help us,” read an England banner in the crowd, but the cloudless sky suggested heaven wasn’t paying attention.

“Cricket is the best game in the world, but it is only a game. There are far more serious things in the world – like Susan Boyle,” England all-rounder Graeme Swann had said before the Test, but after being struck on the right hand, left hand and elbow by an increasingly angry Australian attack he might have been coming around to thinking it was a serious business after all.

“My best advice to Graeme,” said David Lloyd, “is to get to the non-striker’s end – soon.”

Somewhere in Australia a stressed out cricket pundit, was watching it all, chewing his stumps while the Aussie bowlers made an Everest out of a hillock.

“Disgusting to watch! Complete rubbish,” he probably said, proving the sporting punditry world is a small one.