The Sunday Game returns and is fast out of the traps

TV View: A new season of The Sunday Game. Where does the time go? Lots of innovations, too. For example, "you can enjoy all the action on widescreen here on RTÉ this summer," Michael Lyster told us.

This is all very well if you don't have one of those discount tellies (ours is a 'So-Knee') with a free lawnmower thrown in that allows you to choose widescreen but doesn't actually have a screen wide enough to accommodate corner backs, corner forwards, and the like. We tried it for Armagh v Fermanagh yesterday and noted, after 12 minutes, that both teams were playing with seven men.

Yes, Ulster football can, occasionally, be unruly, and after Fermanagh beat Armagh in the Championship last year there's no love lost, but when we reverted to 'Pan and Scan' they were back to 15 men apiece, red cards rescinded.

Incidentally, when we tried our 'Letterbox' setting Colm O'Rourke had the stature of Kylie Minogue and was as wide as the pitch in Croke Park.

We were just about to conclude he'd let himself go a bit during The Sunday Game's off-season, when we panned and scanned him and he was grand. Fit as a fiddle.

We'd a similar problem, by the way, for RTÉ's trip to Shelbourne Park on Saturday night, where the main event was the Ladbroke 600. We thought it was a two-dog race because traps one, two, five and six were missing from our widescreen, so on our telly it was Tomahawk Kid v Ballymac Niloc.

The former pipped the latter, but both were beaten in the 'Pan and Scan' 600 by Satellite Flight, Like A Shot and Historic Moment.

This was bad news for one of the celebrity-type people RTÉ interviewed before the race.

Alan Shortt had backed Like A Shot, although he had offered us non-aficionados this piece of useful advice: "I was told to watch out for whichever dog does a poo just before the race because he'll be lighter."

So, Satellite Flight's number two helped him clinch spot number one? Our education was complete.

We digress. Back to The Sunday Game.

O'Rourke and Joe Brolly were giving Fermanagh no chance of repeating last year's success over Armagh. "Any fear Armagh will stuff Fermanagh today?" asked Lyster.

"There is a danger of that," said O'Rourke.

"Fermanagh to pay sorely for their impertinence last year," forecast Brolly.

So, when Fermanagh trailed by just the point at half-time it was like we never were away.

"What Fermanagh are after doing now is they're after standing on the lion's tail, so Armagh will come out and . . . " said O'Rourke.

"But you said that before the match," said Lyster, breaking in before his panellist dug himself a punditry hole of deeper proportions.

"They will eventually destroy Fermanagh," vowed O'Rourke.

And sure, he was kind of right in the end, Armagh panned and scanned Fermanagh and then shoved them through the letterbox into the qualifiers.

So, in the end, hats off, a successful 2005 debut for The Sunday Game experts, their relief somewhat in contrast to the mood of poor old Delia Smith, whose Norwich City, a bit like her souffle egg whites, were well beaten: 0-6 and relegated.

Sky's Survival Sunday brought us all the drama. Well, actually, it didn't really.

For their live games they chose Fulham v Norwich and Southampton v Manchester United . . . as it turned out all the drama came in the West Brom v Portsmouth and Charlton v Crystal Palace games. Hate that.

There wasn't much synchronicity either. For example, five minutes after Fulham went a goal up against Norwich, Alan Parry, commentating at Southampton, told us Fulham had gone a goal up against Norwich.

By which point Southampton were up and Norwich were down and West Brom and Crystal Palace were . . . it's at times like this Ceefax is your only man.

Back at Southampton. "Going down, going down, going down," the United supporters sympathetically chanted at their hosts when Darren Fletcher equalised.

"Going bust, going bust, going bust," Southampton replied.

Sometimes you just ask for it, don't ya?

So, West Brom survived and the Saints went marching down. As did Crystal Palace and Norwich. And, as it turned out, after their draw at Newcastle, Chelsea only escaped relegation by 62 points - let that be a lesson to them.