TV View: Shocking, that's the only word for it. Those of us who watched it on telly were, frankly, left in despair. Stomach-churning. Nauseating. Is this really sport? It's hard to remember ever seeing such a disturbing and reckless display, in amateur or professional sport, on any field of play.

How much longer must we be subjected to this carry-on? Brutal is the only word for it. Enough, surely, is enough. This must end. Time for action.

Mind you, having paid about £30 million for Rio Ferdinand it's probably unlikely Alex Ferguson will drop him.

"A touch disappointing, I must say, Marcus," thundered an outraged Ray Wilkins after the game on Sky Sports, in which Rio made John O'Shea look like Franco Baresi in his prime.

What's probably required to replace Rio is someone with a competitive streak, someone like Chris Johnson, perhaps, or that Kiwi double act of Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu. Ideally all three would now be sharing a cell on a Down Under island - is Van Diemen's Land still available? - where they could while away their days spear-tackling and straight-arm-tackling each other to their heart's content. But they're still on the loose.

It was hard to believe that Johnson captained the Aussies in that uncompromising rules game against Ireland in Melbourne.

It is at this juncture that we must congratulate Marty Morrissey and Kevin McStay, who got their tactics for the game spot on: Marty followed the ball, Kevin followed the off-the-ball, and it has to be said, Kevin was by far the busier.

Every so often he'd let out a shriek, and the camera would frantically scan the pitch until it located the horizontal Irishman, invariably clutching his jaw.

After Johnson was dismissed for his attempted decapitation of Philip Jordan, to be replaced by a substitute (is it just us or has the world lost the plot?) Marty declared, somewhat mournfully, "this is not sport, this is open warfare!"

McStay disagreed.

"This is thuggery," he said, an assessment echoed back in the studio by Anthony Tohill and Tadhg Kennelly, the latter, miraculously, still in possession of his jaw after a season mixing it with Johnson and Co.

Brian O'Driscoll baulked somewhat when Pat Kenny compared Aussie Rules with rugby on Friday's Late Late Show and, in fairness, after reviewing that video of Umaga and Mealamu spear-tackling O'Driscoll the comparison is probably a slur on Aussie Rules. Maybe even Johnson would draw the line at risking putting an opponent in a wheelchair for the rest of his days.

"It's pretty uneasy on the eye," said O'Driscoll after watching it again, around the same time that exceedingly irritating ticker thingie rolled across the bottom of the screen with messages from predominantly cranky viewers. The gist of one of them was that O'Driscoll should stop whingeing, move on and accept it's a man's game.

We're paraphrasing here; when we try to read those messages we come over all seasick and lose focus by the time we reach the fifth word.

A man's game? Indeed it is, as is Aussie Rules - so, eh, why are Johnson, Umaga and Mealamu allowed to participate?

The Breeders' Cup is, in the main, a horse's game so it's rare you see any of the competitors spear-tackling each other over, say, a carrot. For light relief, then, we tuned in on Saturday night to watch Setanta's coverage of The Big Race in New York.

We spent much of the evening in the company of NBC presenter Tom Hammond - blasted with so much hairspray he could hardly hold his head up - who, let's just say, is no Ted Walsh. If Ted is ever offered a job by NBC he should be warned that he will have to chat on air, and keep a straight face while doing it, with folk with names like the cast of Bugsy Malone - Charlsie Cantey, Shug McGaughey and Donna Barton Brothers. And he'll have to listen to Mike Battaglia telling us Jerry Bailey is "the winningest jockey".

Any way, while wishing Aidan O'Brien's Oratorio good luck we were rooting for Starcraft, whose owner, Paul Makin, had paid $800,000 just to have his four-legged lad, who had never run on "dirt" before, entered in the race.

Alas, Saint Liam won The Big Race, making Jerry Bailey an even more winningest jockey than he was before, with Starcraft trailing in seventh.

Why oh why had Makin taken such a daft gamble? "Because I took my head off and put a pumpkin on," he explained.

We've a nasty feeling it's Starcraft who'll serve out his days in Van Diemen's Land, rather than Chris, Tana and Keven. Although, with a bit of luck, the latter trio will end up being used as the rawest of raw material in a glue factory.