TV VIEW:IT'S USUALLY only when the lion's about to pounce on the gazelle that we cover our screen with Aertel, Ceefax or whatever, leaving on the sound in the hope that we'll hear the little fella escape to safety. They never do, though, their final resting place always in the belly of a Big Cat.

Speaking of which. It was when that Big Cat Eddie Brennan was about to pounce for Kilkenny's second goal yesterday that we covered the screen with Aertel, leaving on the sound in the hope that we'd hear the Deise escape.

"Buried! Two in a row for Brennan," hollered Ger Canning, the David Attenborough of RTÉ's GAA coverage. It wasn't to be then, Waterford leaving Croke Park in the belly of the king of the jungle.

It was when we were looking at Aertel that we were reminded Rory McIlroy was on the verge of winning the European Masters, when, at 19, you'd imagine the only tournaments he'd be on the verge of winning would be on the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 computer game.

Over we went to Sky Sports, just for some light relief. A little putt.

"This for a maiden victory for Rory McIlroy and all of Northern Ireland holds its breath . . . nooooooo . . . it's a play-off."

It dawned on us that Rory had been doing just fine until we tuned in, so we returned to Croke Park.

"Whooooo, Holy God," said Michael Lyster at half-time, and really, that just about summed it up.

"If this was a boxing match," he said, "it'd be Mike Tyson against Marty Morrissey."

True enough, although - and we don't mean any offence at all to Waterford - you'd imagine Tyson would make the Clare Colossus work a bit harder for his triumph.

Anthony Daly agreed, "It'd be tough going on Mike," he said.

"That's what the Yanks would call 'awesome'," said Tomás Mulcahy, while Cyril Farrell just shook his head in a "thank the Lord Almighty it's not Galway out there instead of Waterford" kind of way.

And on it went, the second half offering no relief. If Michael Johnson had been on duty with Cyril, Tomás and Anthony he'd have said "that is perfection, there's nothing else to figure out", as he had said of Usain Bolt at the Olympics.

We imagined the referee in the Marty v Mike bout stepping in to save Mike, wrapped around the ropes as Marty pounded him with uppercuts and swinging right hooks.

We yearned for the officials at Croke Park yesterday to do the same - step in, show some mercy, end the contest.

The 70 minutes seemed almost as long as the gap between Georgia's goal on Saturday and the full-time whistle.

"There used to be a computer game there a few years ago when I was young," said Anthony, "Pacman it was called. And Pacman used to go around eating up the invaders - Kilkenny reminded me of Pacman, they just savaged the Waterford players."

It was a sublime analogy, one we could relate to, having spent our entire youth playing Pacman and habitually suffering much the same fate as a gazelle who bumps in to a peckish lion. Gobbled.

How, wondered Michael, would the Waterford players feel when they woke up in the morning?

"It's very hard to know," said Anthony, "you'd be a bit ashamed, and you're facing back to Waterford tomorrow night well hammered."

To be honest, who'd begrudge Davy Fitz's team a jar or 12 to drown their sorrows?

Giovanni Trapattoni had a happier time of it on Saturday, although Tony O'Donoghue wondered if his habit of "calling out to players using their first names" during the game against Georgia might lead to confusion.

"The problem is we have three Steves and two Kevins," he said.

With a few switches for, say, the Bulgaria game and a cry of "Steve! Kevin! Watch Berbatov!", we could be looking at Dimitar being marked by Kevin Doyle, Kevin Kilbane, Kevin Foley, Steve Finnan, Steve Hunt, Steve Reid, Steve Kelly and maybe even Steve Ireland at corners. He's a danger, is Dimitar, but maybe not that much.

Anyway, job done, a win's a win's a win.

The Dunphy man was ecstatic and hailed Giovanni as the Green Messiah.

"His judgment on important matters hasn't been vindicated, Andy Reid should have been on the pitch, we gave the ball away far too often, we only won courtesy of Glenn Whelan's very, very lucky goal, which the goalkeeper threw in to the net. Set-pieces against, I wasn't convinced. Set-pieces for, I wasn't convinced. And his substitutions were very poor," he gushed.

A resounding thumbs up, then, for the new regime - South Africa here we come.

Home, incidentally, of several Big Cats.

Fear not, they're the less deadly variety: they don't wear black and amber.