Ronnie, Bill and Ted - they're all one of a kind, so to speak

TV VIEW:WE DIDN'T, we have to admit, understand exactly what Ronnie O'Sullivan meant when he said he's been "playing like a plum for 17 years" after he lost the Masters final last week, but then he clarified that this was actually a bad thing. He was, of course, entirely wrong in his assessment of his career, which has been nothing other than peachy: even his bonkers spells are unmissable viewing.

Ronnie, after all, has been one of the few reasons some folk have kept watching snooker since the passing of its halcyon days. He’s a man who can make the simple act of sinking a red seem like a beguiling thing.

It was, if we recall correctly, the Italian snooker commentator Romeo Montague who declared “for I ne’er saw true beauty till this night” when he watched Ronnie complete a 147 in five minutes, 20 seconds at the 1997 World Championships.

Since then, though, Ronnie has had his ups, downs. And more downs. Age, too, is catching up – heavens, it’s a whole five years since he noted: “I don’t know if I’m The Rocket any more – perhaps I’m more like Thomas the Tank Engine these days.”

But still, Ronnie remains the shiniest star in snooker’s firmament, so little wonder Barry Hearn, the Fat Controller of Sport, has vowed to make him central to his revolutionary plans to sexify snooker with a new, rapid-fire, one-frame knockout event.

“They’ll have 12 minutes to play the frame, a 20-second shot clock, ball in hand from fouls and no time to fart,” he said, at which point Peter Ebdon logged on to timeforacareerchange.com.

But Ken Doherty, on punditry duty at the Masters, told Hazel Irvine he embraced Barry’s vision, and was even prepared to “do a Michael Flatley” while wearing a thong as he entered the arena for his knockout frame, anything to jazz things up. In time Hazel will recover from that image, although judging by her expression it won’t be any time soon.

This, then, is what once- popular-but-now-seriously-struggling sports have to resort to if they’re going to keep breathing, in a telly-viewing-figures sense, and judging by the empty seats at some of the televised FA Cup ties over the weekend we’ll soon be seeing Roberto Mancini waltzing on the touchline in nothing more than a fig leaf, just to, well, jazz things up.

Still, the cup produced a delicious moment yesterday, the sight of Robinho jogging out on to Scunthorpe United’s Glanford Park, the advertising hoardings around him urging him to down a Pukka Pie. Ah here, there’s life left in the Cup yet.

Rugby’s European Cup is still kicking, too. Munster and Leinster’s progress to the quarter-finals prompted a jubilant George Hook to proclaim: “How much luck have these two Irish provinces got left?” Oh well.

Granted, Munster and Leinster’s performances were a bit plumish, but on they go, with Leinster digging out a draw with London Irish, in part thanks to Chris Malone’s wayward kicking.

“In what pound shop did they get him,” asked Tom McGurk.

Aw.

“We’re laying our money on Munster and Leinster being in the same half of the draw because you couldn’t possibly have two Irish teams in the final in Paris,” said McGurk, somewhat conspiratorially, on Friday night.

“I think that’s a terrible thing to say,” gasped Conor O’Shea, “but I think it could happen. Weighted balls in the pot?”

McGurk and O’Shea are writing their letters of apology as we speak, with Munster and Leinster, as it happened, kept apart, Paris-bound, once they sweep Northampton, Biarritz/Ospreys, Clermont Auvergne and Toulouse/Stade Francais aside.

Bill McLaren, bless him, will miss the battles, as the incomparably wonderful former BBC commentator took his leave of us last week. “I look at Colin Meads and see a great big sheep farmer who carried the ball in his hands as though it was an orange pip.” One of a kind.

As is, need it be said, Ted Walsh. Robert Hall must have regretted noting before the 3.20 at Leopardstown yesterday that Quel Esprit was grey.

“Steel grey at the moment,” Ted corrected him. “We saw a lot of grey horses running yesterday but they were nearly white, they had a bit of age on them. Grey horses are like humans, they start off grey, nearly dark grey, some of them are described as brown or black when they’re foals, but when they get to seven or eight they end up white as a ghost. I don’t know if ghosts are white. I haven’t seen too many ghosts, but they’re usually dressed up in a white sheet, jumping out from behind a door. You never see a ghost in a black sheet, would you?”

“Um,” said Robert, “no.”

“Judging by the empty seats at some of the televised FA Cup ties over the weekend we’ll soon be seeing Roberto Mancini waltzing on the touchline in nothing more than a fig leaf, just to, well, jazz things up