After his storming debut as a chat show host last Friday night on ITV it's surely only a matter of time before the white smoke billows from the chimney at Montrose and the RTE conclave appoints him as successor to Gay Byrne.

Come next September . . . "Ladies and Gentlemen, to whom it concerns, it's the Late Late Show - and here is your host, Ian Wright, Wright, Wright."

Wrightie, as his friends in the game know him, is a natural, a fact observed by one of his guests on Friday. "I've been watching you back there man and you look so relaxed you look like you've been doing this for the last 100 years - I can't believe this, it's amazing," gushed Lionel Richie. "Thanks man," blushed Wrightie.

In fact, at times, if you closed your eyes, it was hard to distinguish between Wrightie and Gaybo's easy interviewing styles.

"You've got some attitude on yer face man, you're vexed man," he said.

"No man I'm cool, I'm all right, I feel good man," replied his guest.

"That's nice."

"What about you?"

"Look at me man."

"I gotta give you respect man."

"Thanks man."

It could have been an extract from Gaybo's interview with Cardinal Daly, that time he appeared on the Late Late in the middle of a very heated `the-Catholic-Church-has-tochange' debate, but it was actually the beginning of Wrightie's cosy chat with Prince Naseem Hamed.

In fact the only discernible difference in their styles is that Wrightie spends a considerable part of his show grabbing his crotch and thrusting his hips towards the camera, which is not a regular habit of Gaybo's while on air.

After the Prince made his exit Lionel Richie was introduced as the man "responsible for hundreds and thousands of babies", which may have come as a shock to the crooner, and he was soon to learn what a central role he had played in the number nine's life.

"I must ask you about one particular record, `Three Time's a Lady' - it's got a bit of significance for me personally because this was the record what brought me back to realising how much I really loved my wife, when I had a little bit of turbulence in my life," said Wrightie as the camera focused on his mortified wife sitting in the audience.

"Wow," said an almost tearful Lionel. "That's a great story man." "Thanks man," said Wrightie. It could have been Gaybo talking about the Harp player.

So, next September, Pat Kenny may well have a new man to mark in the battle of the weekend chat shows, but if he can manage to find guests like the incredible Kavanagh Brothers from Arklow every Saturday night he should hold his own. Man.

Peter and Eamon were one of the 30 teams that took part in the 3,000mile Atlantic Rowing Race late last year. Six weeks after leaving the Canary Islands the brothers (aged 42 and 52), rowed in to Barbados finishing fourth in the race, ahead of a string of Olympic and international rowers half their age.

"The ones you really wanted to beat though were the British teams, weren't they," said Pat. "Well, obviously we did yeah, especially the British Army and the Marines," said a grinning Eamon. "Where did they finish up?"

"Well, the Marines finished a few days after us and the British Army finished on Christmas Day," said Eamon. "And what date did you finish?" "On the ninth of December, somewhere around there." Whooping and cheering could be heard in the audience. (The British Army crew had been given a year's sabbatical to train for the race.)

"And Peter, what were you thinking about out there on the Atlantic, what kind of dreams did you have," asked Pat. "I was thinking about the pain in me backside," he said, as we were shown a photo of a seriously blistered bottom which, Peter was quick to point out, belonged to his brother.

Geoffrey Boycott's bottom made its way on to more than a few chatshow couches last week as he desperately tried to restore his reputation after being found guilty of assaulting a former girlfriend.

On Channel 4's Under the Moon on Wednesday he managed to turn around most of the night's topics of conversation to the predicament he finds himself him in, even comparing Glamorgan cricketers' problems getting picked for England with "my situation the last couple of days with that lady - it's not always fair, the law isn't fair, life isn't always fair".

He then went on to complain about footballers' lack of respect for referees these days. "Even if you make a mistake I don't see how you can slag them off like that." Hear, hear. A bit more respect all round, that's what we need. But then, hell hath no fury like a footballer gutted by a poor refereeing decision. Man.