Nobody warned us about this

TV View: That's it. Time to bin the zapper and throw out the idiot box. Television is a mug's game. No more pundits. No more predictions, no more reasons why or good feelings. No more sport. Enough is enough, writes Keith Duggan.

Yesterday was supposed to be one of those occasions when Ireland becomes a richer place through the communal experience of watching sport on television. With darkness still about us, we banged the alarm clocks on the head, brewed the tea and trudged loyally towards the couch. And then?

The horror, the horror. France versus Ireland. It was like the 1980s all over again. Haul out the stonewash jeans and re-run the Self Aid concert. Once again, we live in a grim land where dreams get shattered.

From the outset, everything about this World Cup quarter-final felt wrong. RTÉ wheeled out the Big Three of McGurk, Pope and Hook for this most special of days, but the studio felt lonely. For some reason, we anticipated a room crowded with heroes past and present, we imagined a big bucket with bubbly on ice, we imagined the Hookster decked out in fetching green.

Instead, it was as if the three lads took a bus out to Montrose, waited for the caretaker to let them in and turned on the lights themselves. It felt bleak.

Then came the obligatory images of Irish fans in raucous mood Down Under, fans that will forever be blighted with the title of the Blarney Army, a depressing banner-name that undoubtedly owes its origins to ITV's Jim Rosenthal, the Freddie Krueger of sports presenters.

Inside the stadium, we were treated to massive gaps in the stands, hundreds and hundreds of empty seats. Straight away, you had to fear the worse. The Telstra Dome - a place name that will always make us shudder now - seemed full only of echoes. And ghosts. France had scored only a couple of tries when Jim Sherwin and Tony Ward began reminiscing about the great struggles of the seventies, when France had JP Rives and Ireland had Fergus Slattery.

It was a case of trying to take their minds, if not their eyes, off what was unfolding below them on the green field.

Just an hour earlier, Eddie O'Sullivan had appeared on that field and called it as he saw it.

"I think it is there for us if we want it," he smiled sanguinely.

That, after all, was what we had been led to believe, what we had been assured by pundits and former players, men who had endured all kinds of humiliations from the French and felt certain that those days were over.

And then came the reality.

"The thing is that I said from the start France could win the World Cup and we are seeing now that they might," ventured an ashen George Hook. "This has nothing to do with Ireland, it is all about France. They are magnificent."

But the thing is, nobody said that beforehand. Nobody declared Ireland might be unceremoniously booted to touch.

Nobody said there was a danger that, 15 minutes into the match, it would, in the sad tradition of Ireland-France rugby games, come down to a question of how much.

From the moment Ronan O'Gara was whacked by Serge Betsen, the game had a dizzying and disorientating quality to it. Did France really have just 15 players on the field? It was as if they had five and six players lining up for every Irish man. Ireland could not get past the French 10-metre line. It was frightening.

After half-time, we were informed Ireland were playing for that peculiarly Celtic consolation prize, pride.

It was poignant Keith Wood's international career should close on that retrogressive note.

Bittersweet, too, was the sight of Brian O'Driscoll squirming over for a second try in the 80th minute.

"At least it gives the second half to Ireland," said Tony Ward forlornly.

Afterwards, O'Sullivan stood in the middle of the field and the squad closed ranks around him.

"It hurts very deeply," said Hook, and so it did.

Keith Wood trooped off as battered and weary as he did in the torrid early years of his career.

"A sad way to go out," offered Brent Pope.

"We tried out damnedest out there but it didn't come up," said Wood afterwards as Edith Piaf played in the background.

Wood struggled for words and there were tears in his eyes. It left a dewy atmosphere back in studio, where the Big Three were clearly in need of a cuddle.

Then came a sketch from the Après Match team which struck a bum note given the funereal atmosphere.

Once more then, the boys had a look at what went wrong.

"I think the tank was empty," sighed Big George.

So it was. Another World Cup passes, then and the Promised Land of the semi-finals seems as far away as ever. In the cold light of morning, it was all too much. When it came to re-running the "highlights" of the game, it was time to tune out and switch off.

Back to January and Lansdowne Road and the rain.