TV VIEW:LIKE THE smell of silage, the taste of a ninety-nine or the sight of a painful red neck, the signature tune to The Sunday Gameis a sure sign of summer.
This year, Gaeldom's most evocative notes contain a hollow echo that suggests they have been recorded and mixed in an aircraft hangar. But for those who dutifully endured the winter as a price for the championship, they are more welcome than a squadron of swallows.
Already though, the problem for The Sunday Gamedevotees is that this looks like being a very long GAA summer.
"Everyone in May can dream of being a champion," pronounced Colm O'Rourke yesterday. "But since the back-door system has come in, the All-Ireland is more predictable. We can already say who five or six of the teams in the quarter-finals will be."
Colm then started reeling off the usual suspects only to get cut across by Michael Lyster, who was no doubt mindful of the three months that have to be got out of the way before the serious stuff starts. That's a lot of time air to fill, especially when others appear keen to help out.
"You're going to depress the whole country - you should have taken that offer from Setanta if that's the attitude you're going to take," chipped in Joe Brolly, smiling that "ooh, aren't I a devil, ducky" grin that instantly provoked thousands of clenched fists around said country.
It was met with a rather pregnant pause before Lyster obliged with a "huh-huh" that made Pat Kenny's spontaneous explosions of mirth sound like Norman Wisdom.
A solution to the problem in RTÉ minds is a brand-new look to the old Sunday Gameship. After explaining that it was the first real day of Championship 2008, Lyster handed back from a rather draughty looking Pearse Stadium in Salthill to the brand-new "Match Centre" in Dublin.
Joanne Cantwell stood in a new set with "Match Centre" written on it. It was obviously new in the sense that anything chrome and shiny has to be new.
Cantwell then did her bit to camera before announcing we were going "around the grounds".
More computer flicking sent us twisting into a sub- Terminatorpiece of schtick with panels and squiggles that beamed in on a map of Ireland, just in case anyone thought there was a chance of Gaelic Games being played anywhere else.
At Croke Park Martin Carney wore a new shirt with "RTÉ Sport" on it and told us Carlow hadn't a snowballs against Meath. Up in Belfast, Adrian Eames wore a similar shirt. For a new season, the new theme was being hammered home. And ultimately all the chrome and polyester and computer-generated fiddly bits really did was show up age-old problem at this time of year with The Sunday Game.
"Tyrone's reward for a first-round win over Fermanagh in the Ulster Hurling Championship is a match against London," Cantwell proclaimed.
I defy even the most devoted GAA groupie to parse any part of that sentence into any sort of excitement.
The start of the championship has always been something of an endurance test. But the lucrative back-door system introduced seven years ago really has taken out much of the suspense that might have encouraged a casual viewer to tune in anytime before August. As it is, it's possible to feel nostalgia for even the concept of a real old-fashioned championship upset.
Mind you, nostalgia is a dangerous thing. Were the FA Cup final build-ups of years ago really godawful? Was it just the lack of live football of any kind most of the year that made the marathon final build-ups seem wonderful? Because now that we all have live football coming out of our ears, Saturday's BBC coverage of Wembley's showpiece event made Tyrone versus Fermanagh seem pretty damn alluring.
Gary Lineker kicked off two hours and 20 minutes before the ball moved and was quickly in trouble. The way he jumped on pictures of the Cardiff City bus arriving was the way a drowning man grabs at a lifebuoy.
"Two hours before kick-off; that's very early," he said, before obviously giving Mark Lawrenson a kick under the table to keep on flannelling.
"What on earth are they going to do for two hours?" was all Lawro could come up with, no doubt echoing the thoughts of much of the TV audience.
It didn't use to be like that, did it? Helicopters used to follow the bus years ago and it seemed the height of anticipatory excitement. Maybe it's just age.
"The Portsmouth bus has got stuck in traffic - arriving 40 minutes after Cardiff's," Lineker reported, gamely. He sounded like Tom Crean on an ice floe, staring off into a far-away horizon.
Some things never change, however. Footballers playing golf remains a nerve-grater.
Cardiff's manager Dave Jones played someone else and droned on about . . . well, whatever golfers drone on about. He was much better when it came to quietly talking up his team's chances.
"Not coming to make up the numbers . . . it's not as if we're playing Chelsea or Man United . . . give it a good go," all tripped off his tongue in a way that reminded everyone that even though they were a Championship side taking on a Premiership club, Cardiff had a genuine shout.
They played like it too. Right down to the end, they were competitive.
It was reassuring to know you can throw as much chrome at something as you like but it is still good, old-fashioned competition that gets bottoms on seats.
