Dublin v Kerry, not a bad fixture at all for Setanta to kick-start its 2016 National League coverage, and while you might initially have felt a pang of guilt for not being there, instead sitting in front of your telly with a cup of cocoa while marvelling about the wonders of central heating, David McIntyre talking about impending hypothermia made you feel it was a wise enough decision.
"We're pretty much wearing everything we own," he said as he attempted to chat with Billy Joe Padden pitch-side before the game, his lips as solid as the beginning of Dublin's defence of their title proved to be.
Up in their studio overlooking the pitch Ger Gilroy, James Horan and Declan O'Sullivan were a bit on the chilly side too, and didn't even have a seat between them.
Ger hinting at a little bitterness on his part when he told us Mossy Quinn was based in Setanta’s tactics truck for the night, “nice and warm inside”.
Mossy should have just worn Speedos to wind up the lads, but he behaved, his focus purely on the bank of tellies in front of him, making it look for all the world like he was sitting in Power City.
Ad break. Insurance for bad drivers who let their baths overflow and flood the house and who have a habit of losing control of their jet skis; insurance for people who drop their iPhones down the loo; a product for sealing leaks in heating systems; an ad for private hospitals; another for lager; another for a betting company, and one for a chocolate bar that contains more calories than you’re permitted in a week.
Advertisers, then, evidently believe National League watchers are sweet-toothed chronically accident prone boozed-up gamblers. Offensive. But, sure, maybe they’re right.
Any way, Dublin won handily enough, their eighth victory in the last 10 league and championship meetings with Kerry, kind of making them Novak Djokovic to Kerry's Andy Murray.
Cranky piece
Speaking of which, there was a deliciously cranky piece on the
Daily Mail’s
website yesterday about the BBC’s failure to show live Murray’s latest attempt at winning the
Australian Open
, under a typically pithy headline: “Andy Murray was crowned BBC Sports Personality of the Year but was unable to inspire as fans were made to wait for Australian Open final on the channel.”
"If you were waiting for Auntie to bring you the Australian Open Final against Novak Djokovic, then there was a LOT of baking and John Wayne wearing a furry hat in The Alamo to get through before their highlights show began on BBC 2 in the afternoon. The reason for which, I'm not aware of."
If the author was a reader of his own website he’d have spotted the story a few weeks ago: “BBC to axe live coverage of Australian Open as part of £35m cut to sports budget...with Eurosport claiming exclusive rights.”
And Eurosport weren't shy about letting us know that it had EXCLUSIVE coverage of the tournament, Rob Curling reminding us almost as often as Murray had unforced errors.
"It's going to be close! It's going to be tight! It's going to be exciting," Greg Rusedski promised Rob and the rest of us.
And then Djokovic won in straight sets.
Love Murray
For those of us who have come to love Murray intensely – the U-turn coinciding with him sharing photos of himself and his dogs
Maggie May
and Rusty slurping the face off him and the revelation that he Skypes them when he’s away – it was deeply unpleasant seeing him lose in Oz again.
“I feel like I’ve been here before,” he told the crowd of his, well, fifth Australian Open Final defeat, his fourth to Djokovic.
And then he tearfully looked into the camera and promised his wife he’d be on the next flight home so he’d be there for the birth of his first human baby.
Maggie May and Rusty were probably in floods. A few slurps from them would beat overcoming Djokovic in Melbourne any day. Chin up Andy.
