Sport

TV View: Hats off to TG4’s As It Stands number cruncher

Unique individual must be the love child of Pythagoras and effervescent Carol Vorderman

Monaghan’s Jack McCarron celebrates with his father Ray and mother Patricia after the game in which Dublin were defeated. Photograph: Inpho

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Mon Mar 28 2022 - 06:00

Well, that was a cracker of a weekend. Sometimes you’d just be left in awe of the sheer mastery you’re witnessing, and that was precisely the feeling when watching the work of the TG4 person tasked with updating their As It Stands table during those National League football games.

That's not to underestimate the shift put in by our host Micheál Ó Domhnaill who had the job of split-screening our tellies and transporting us from Clones to Letterkenny to Killarney to Carrick-on-Shannon and back to Clones again whenever anything of note happened at one of the venues, like he was a Celtic hybrid of Phileas Fogg and Jeff Stelling.

But the As It Stands person, the love child of Pythagoras and Carol Vorderman, performed heroics.

In, say, soccerball, the scores aren’t all that frequent, so updating those tables is a breeze. But 11 goals and 122 points were scored in Clones/Letterkenny/Killarney/Carrick-on-Shannon, so according to this abacus that was 133 changes that had to be made to the Division One table.

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And note, TG4’s As It Stands person wasn’t just updating points, they had to look after the scoring difference too, which, presumably, had them typing much like Kermit in that gif while their brain was in overdrive doing the maths.

So, doff yer caps. And forget yer Super Sundays – this was Deadly Dhomhnach.

Deadly, certainly, for the relegated Dubs, Jack McCarron proving to be the Chiedozie Ogbene of Monaghan with his 2-06, including that cheeky fecker of a lobbed goal and winning free in the dying seconds that wasn’t a bother on him even though the distance, to nervy Stony Grey Soil folk, looked to be from Clones to Killarney.

I'm actually speechless, football never fails to amaze you . . . absolute heartbreak

Chiedozie, meanwhile, almost made some of us love soccerball again having decided to give it up as a bad job after our girls’ defeat by Finland in the Under-17 European Championship qualifier in Tallaght.

One-nil up on 91 minutes, 28 seconds, and they lost 2-1. "I'm speechless," said Alan Cawley on RTÉ News, "I'm actually speechless, football never fails to amaze you . . . absolute heartbreak." It was too, you couldn't be coping with the sight of young ones bawling in to their jerseys, hearts-in-smithereens territory.

But Chiedozie lifted the soccerball spirits again with his performance against Belgium, Mick McCarthy, on Sky duty, upsetting Rotherham fans by saying “I’m not trying to upset any Rotherham fans . . . but he doesn’t look like he’s playing for Rotherham.”

At the rate he's going, Chiedozie could be appearing at an Irish football legends' lunch in about 50 years time, as the likes of Ray Houghton, Packie Bonner and Charlie O'Leary did to mark the FAI's centenary, snippets of which Sky brought us. "Charlie's about 96," said Mick. "That's years, not centimetres." A diminutive kit man, perhaps, but indomitable certainly.

Apart from a silver hair here and there, he looks ready to be selected for Tuesday's friendly against Lithuania

Another of that gang, incidentally, who is ageing obscenely gracefully, is Denis Irwin who turned up at Old Trafford on Sunday for Sky's coverage of Manchester United women's first game at the stadium in front of fans (having played their before during Covid-enforced empty stands).

Denis, it can be confirmed, is the Dorian Gray of Irish soccerball, apart from a silver hair here and there, he looks ready to be selected for Tuesday's friendly against Lithuania.

A crowd of 20,241, the highest of the women’s Super League season, turned up for the game, United beating Everton 3-1. What’s that line? “If you build it, they will come.”

Which could be applied to women's rugby in this neck of the woods, a record 6,113 turning up at the RDS to see Ireland lose to a Welsh side they had mullered 45-0 in Cardiff a year ago. And then Wales made half their squad professional, and voila. "We'll take the learnings from this," coach Greg McWilliams told Virgin Media's Tommy Bowe after the game. The chief learnings? Investment, it can do wonders.

Anyway, time to award the Shot of the Week gong. Drum roll! The winner is Brooks Koepka for his 443-yard drive at the WGC-Dell Match Play thingie.

As Sky's Andrew Coltart put it, "I don't go that far for my holidays". Clones to Killarney and back.

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