TV View: Younger readers may not remember Jimmy Hill, the lantern-jawed Match of the Day host who had only to open his mouth to send many Irish viewers into paroxysms of jingoistic fury. Jimmy's problem, to Irish ears at least, was that his one-eyed, pro-English take was enough to make Margaret Thatcher sound like a Europe-loving pinko liberal.

As a result, generations of otherwise sober football fans in this country will still burst into a chorus of "are you watching Jimmy Hill" whenever the England team are in trouble against Azerbaijan or Colombia or some of our other traditional soul brothers.

You can imagine Bertie Ahern being one of them. Asked on Tubridy Tonight recently if he agreed England might do well at the World Cup, the Taoiseach's response was a doleful, "It'll mean having to listen to them for the summer".

Make no mistake. When Bertie said "them", he meant Jimmy and some of his bulldog buddies.

Which makes one wonder how any French residents here would have reacted on Saturday to RTÉ's coverage of the European Cup final. Maybe with a couple of verses of "Etes vous observant, Ryle Nugent?"

In a shrieking display of near-erotic excitement that sent even token attempts at editorial balance sailing through the cracks in the Cardiff roof, Ryle managed to make Jimmy seem as neutral as Switzerland. On Munster's greatest day, he was determined to be as red-eyed as the most rabid doctor or docker from Limerick. The result was a commentary that made Brian Moore seem hopelessly two-eyed and impartial.

"You need to ask what Dave Pearson was looking at," he quickly pouted after Biarritz's opening try. True, repeated replays showed Bobo, the winger, had stood on the touchline, but Ryle reacted like a bride left at the altar. "Was he looking at Bobo's backside or his feet?" he sniffed curiously.

But then came the honeymoon of Munster's first try which came on the back of some sustained and lengthy probing.

"They're CLOSER!" roared Ryle.

"They can SMELL it!" he bawled.

"They can FEEL it!" Ryle screeched.

"YOU BEAUTY! YOU ABSOLUTE BEAUTY!!!!!"

But Ryle was only getting going.

"Every sinew, every tissue, every muscle," he cooed at an orgiastic close-up replay of Stringer getting the second try.

"O'Gara-a-a-a," he whimpered as a Biarritz player got within 50 feet of blocking down a kick.

"They're determined to win it, playing rugby," Ryle shrieked, just in case any of us thought Foley & Co were going to whip out a few hurleys. "Oh, glory glory Munster!"

Back in the studio, George Hook was presented with the chance to explain why, yet again, he had got it wrong. George had plumped for Biarritz to win, thus continuing a spectacular losing streak that began in the last century. Throwing the phrase "expert" at him is becoming an infringement of the trade descriptions act. No one expects George to get it right all the time. But with a choice of only three possible results in every match, his credibility needs a winner. And soon.

"I honestly believe it was all about the 70,000 crowd," George ventured, in his expert way. Brent Pope and Conor O'Shea expertly agreed.

"The team are connected by an umbilical chord to the supporters," George added, expertly.

It's true the Munster players pay tribute to their supporters. They can hardly do anything else. But surely it's an insult to their professionalism to attribute the key to their success as coming from the terraces. It's also a bit much to suggest, as Pope tried to, that the Biarritz players suddenly got all girly when faced with 50,000 beered-up Irishmen.

Such trite comment can only contribute to the increasingly smug self-regard in some of the Munster support that's fast becoming a bore. That famous banner proclaiming "Irish by birth - Munster by the grace of God" had a parochial charm at first. Now it just seems chippy.

It was a relief, then, in the build-up to the match, and in the aftermath, to see that the surrounding ballyhoo hadn't deflected the quiet self-confidence and focused good sense of the players. And it wasn't just on Saturday that the central protagonists shone.

Wednesday night's Champions League final proved yet again that the basic requirement for an international referee now seems to be that he fails an eye test. Thierry Henry had a pretty torrid time of it, but the Frenchman retained enough class at the end to provide the picture of the week.

His French colleague, but Barcelona opponent, Ludovic Giuly, was in happy tears while carrying his young child around the pitch. Henry must have been, as they say, gutted. But there was still a beaming smile and a kiss for the youngster that was just about the coolest thing seen during the night.

Proof that, even in defeat, the French can still display the sort of elan that might have even Jimmy Hill nodding in approval.