TV View: A breathless week, literally so, at Windsor Park. "I better take a couple of my tablets," Jackie Fullerton panted after David Healy completed that heavenly hat-trick, Northern Ireland's victory over Spain as predictable as a winning set of lottery numbers.

Jackie gets excited at the best of times - eg, when doing the highlights of a cup clash between, say, Chimney Corner and Tobermore United - but Wednesday lifted him to a whole new stratosphere. "AaaaOOOoooaaaWOAH," as he put it when Healy chipped home his third.

Even more breathless, as it proved, was Saturday's All-Ireland football semi-final between the women of Armagh and Galway on TG4. Armagh appeared to be given as much chance of winning the game as Northern Ireland were of beating Spain, with Galway quoted at 10 to 3 on, but win they did.

Or - and one is loath to ask - did they? Thirty-seven seconds to go, the scores at 1-12 each, and Barbara Hannon put Galway a point ahead. Except she didn't. It was signalled wide. Hannon was as bemused as this couch.

It's at times like this that you get out your video-recorder manual and read it for the very first time, largely in the hope of learning how to use that "jog" feature on your remote control. Until now it seemed like a polite suggestion from the manufacturers, a hint, perhaps, that one should abandon the telly for an hour or three and take some exercise.

Anyway, having jogged the tape we could only categorically conclude that it looked very much like a point, but there was a distinct possibility that it wasn't. In other words, God knows. So much for video technology being the answer to our sporting mysteries.

Another mystery was quite how Sharon Duncan kept her cool to put that free over the bar to win the game for Armagh, with precisely nought seconds left on the clock. "AaaaOOOoooaaaWOAH," said Brian Tyers. No chat, though, about the point that wasn't; there are, we assume, videos purring as we speak.

On to Croke Park yesterday for the now annual camogie All-Ireland final meeting of Cork and Tipperary. The anticipated classic never materialised. Cork, as Michael Lyster pointed out, did unto Tipp what Kilkenny did unto Cork's boys a week ago.

"You'd have to single out one to nine," said Therese O'Callaghan in the commentary box. Another three-in-a-row crusade starts now.

We spent much of Saturday in the company of Jeff Stelling, the incomparable presenter of Sky Sport's Soccer Saturday. "Mido has just been sent off and I can confirm he walks like an Egyptian," Jeff once said. "And it's poetic justice as Byron is sent from the field." "Gareth Jellyman has just been dismissed - I think he's thrown a wobbler."

The list of his finest moments is nigh on endless. Little wonder we love him so.

As a Hartlepool supporter his knowledge of the nether regions of English football is slightly frightening. Every time a score comes in he instantaneously blinds us with info: eg, "Good to see Jim Harvey's back in work, unceremoniously dismissed by Morecambe! He's in charge at Forest Green today for the first time! And they're a GOAL UP against Cambridge!"

See what we mean?

And, of course, he is renowned for his ability to translate Chris Kamara's reports into English, so, for example, when Chris told us that "for Burnley to win they are going to have to score" Jeff told us that this meant Burnley hadn't scored yet. We'd be lost without him.

Maintaining the breathless theme, Jeff was doing a bit of gasping himself on Saturday when word came through from Pride Park. "AaaaOOOoooaaaWOAH," he said when he heard Sunderland had gone 2-1 up. And "AaaaOOOoooaaaWOAH" was the inevitable response yesterday morning when we tuned in to ITV's The Championship, which, need it be said, began with highlights from the Derby v Sunderland game. On the bench: Roy Keane. In the directors' box: Niall Quinn. In the stand: Mick McCarthy. In the other stand: Steve Staunton. Truly, it was like I, Keano had come to Derby.

"There's something scrumptious about the fact that Mick McCarthy should be sharing a stadium with Roy Keane on his first day in management," commentator Peter Drury giggled, before noting SundIreland had five Republic of Ireland players in their starting line-up, with Keane, Quinn, McCarthy and Staunton looking on. "Are you sensing an Irish theme here?" he asked. Well, yes.

ITV didn't focus on Keane too much, though, opting to concentrate on the match instead. Well, apart from the time Liam Miller shot just wide . . . camera switches to Keane. And Matt Oakley scored for Derby . . . camera switches to Keane. And Chris Brown equalised for Sunderland . . . camera switches to Keane. And Ross Wallace scored the winner for Sunderland . . . camera switches to Keane. And then there was the slow-motion replay of Keane celebrating. And when the final whistle blew . . . camera switches to Keane. The gaffer-cam has replaced the player-cam. And you have to say, it makes for absorbing viewing.