TV VIEW:AFTER THE anthems, to be honest about it, no more entertainment was required, we'd already got more than our money's worth. Giovanni could have played an 8-1-1 formation in the hope of holding out for a 0-0 draw against Oman, it wouldn't have mattered a jot, the pre-match festivities had been marginally epic.

“And now for the Oman national anthem,” said Setanta’s Connor Morris, at which point a tune that was kind of a cross between The Final Countdown and the theme from Black Beauty started up.

The camera zoomed in on the Oman players, anticipating capturing them bellowing lustily and patriotically, but all we saw were 11 bemused faces that then proceeded to dissolve in to giggles. Goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi was especially giddy, but we mention him only because he’s the only Oman player we know.

Then a lengthy pause before the Irish anthem. Which showed no sign of coming. So the players and half the assembled crowd (Séamus) began belting it out a cappella, with the other half (Willo) opting instead to sing “Come on you Boys in Green”. And as soon as they were done the music for Amhrán na bhFiann started up.

And then the real Oman anthem filled the air, with those of us ditzy enough to watch an inordinate amount of telly football finally remembering the first tune was actually the Fifa anthem – which does, indeed, sound like a cross between The Final Countdown and the theme from Black Beauty, on speed.

(On that note, how many of you watched Jordan beat Australia live and exclusively in Oman’s World Cup qualifying group on Eurosport yesterday? None? Well, your loss – it was gas stuff. But how come Jordan had that fireworks display ready to rumble at full-time? Just a super confident bunch?)

Any way. “What we thought was the Oman anthem, with the heavy guitar riff in the middle. . . it clearly wasn’t,” said Connor, who sounded a little bit less than impressed. He noted that London had quite flawlessly hosted the Olympics and Paralympics, but “preparation was forgotten as soon as the flame was extinguished”. It wasn’t, then, the Olympic/Paralympic legacy Prime Minister-elect Boris Johnson had been hoping for.

But you know, maybe only Katie Taylor rivalled it all this year in the unmissable-sporting-telly ranks. Quite marvellous.

The football? Oh yeah, that.

Pre-match, our host Paul Dempsey sounded a little Trapattoni-fatigued, particularly at a loss to understand why he had selected Paul McShane for the night that was in it, rather than one of the younger less/untried guns. Brian Kerr and Kevin Kilbane couldn’t disagree, at which point Paul reported that McShane had vomited in the warm-up and had been replaced by Seán St Ledger. The power of telly punditry.

Brian, though, was hopeful of a decent enough evening’s football, with a few of the more youthful fellas being given their fling, and clung to the wish that the “fatwa” placed on the full backs being allowed pass the half-way line would be lifted.

Paul, meanwhile, showed his panel the two line-ups, but they opted largely to focus on Ireland, neither seeming willing to dissect the Oman one-to-eleven, for some reason.

Mind you, if we didn’t know a great deal about Oman, they probably didn’t know a whole lot about our line-up either, so it was a journey in to the unknown for both.

And off we went, the not-very-massive crowd making it possible to hear the players have a word with each other: eg “F***ing ’ell Robbie.” Industrial language, they call it in the trade.

But Robbie scored, rather delightfully, and then made Kevin Doyle’s goal with a very pleasant left-footed free, ensuring he will from here-on be known as Chippy II.

It was 4-1 in the end, which was grand, Brian just relieved that we hadn’t witnessed more “bish-bang-wallop-bash-it-up-the-middle-and-see-how-you-go” stuff. You’d pay in to hear that being translated for Giovanni in his post-match press conference.