TV View: No sign of Ireland’s call in Pretoria as TMO decisions give pundits the pip

Question is, how many television zappers burned themselves out this past weekend?

Anna Woolhouse talked of the plethora of rugby matches on Sky Sports but, truth be told, it was a weekend of sport where every type of ball – football, hurling and camogie, tennis, golf – along with whizzing machines – bikes in the Tour de France and Formula 1 cars at Silverstone – made channel-hopping a family pastime and with not enough hours in the day for goggle-eyed sports viewers.

Woolhouse has shown herself to be a versatile presenter for Sky and earned quite a reputation in fronting box-office boxing but she kept that heavyweight analogy going for the, ahem, “heavyweight” clash of the titans (which was how it was billed on the satellite channel) between world champions South Africa and Ireland, the Six Nations champions and world number two ranked team, in what was one of four summer internationals screened live on Saturday.

Scheduling international rugby union matches at this time of the year is, in truth, hard to fathom in a season that these days seems to stretch beyond all reason. Yet here we were, watching Springbok legend Bryan Habana cheerily providing his prematch welcome from the Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria and pointing to the installed lighting above the tunnel as an example of how South African coach Rassie Erasmus “bends rules and laws to suit the way his teams play”.

Anyway, the boxing analogy continued with commentator Martin Gillingham – “There may not be trophies but there is the heavyweight belt,” he observed of the meeting of the two best teams in world rugby – and co-commentator Alan Quinlan settling in for the fight.

And quite the bout it turned out to be, with heavy hits and some marginal calls that – time and time and time again – seemed to go against Ireland to the point that much of the post-match discussions in studio from Rory Best and Shane Horgan focused on the role of the TMO and the match referee Luke Pearce, who’d only come in late for Angus Gardner.

In the match commentary, Gillingham had referred to the “hairline call” and Quinnie to the “big call” that focused on James Lowe’s foot being in touch and whether or not he had released the ball and other marginal shouts.

Best has proven himself to be a very good analyst of the game since giving up hooking and finding a place on the couch, his words delivered with a smile that also managed to mask the cutting edge of what he really means.

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The constant use of the TMO certainly irked Best, as he rightly pointed out on the intervention that saw Rónan Kelleher penalised retrospectively and which led to an Irish try by Lowe being overturned.

As Best observed of the TMO’s involvement, “If he [the referee] doesn’t see that in real time, I think if you go to any breakdown at any given point you can pick holes to say that was an infringement. Let Luke Pearce do his job!”

Not that Best was saying the TMO calls were actually wrong. Just, well, just … that they always seemed to go one way.

In highlighting the thin margin of the decision-making, Best claimed: “The TMO decisions, it’s very hard to argue against them, that they were wrong, but there’s also a little bit where you toss a coin you expect heads to come up at some stage.”

Anyway, for all of the oval ball viewing for this time of the year, with Anna again promising another “plethora” of matches next Saturday, including the second Test of the South Africa-Ireland series, there was – amid Wimbledon and Formula 1 and All-Ireland hurling semi-finals and indeed the Euros – the rather welcome – and inspired – decision of RTÉ to provide live coverage of the All-Ireland camogie quarter-finals.

Indeed, presenter Joanne Cantwell had a broad smile after Saturday’s shock win for Dublin over Kilkenny and was still smiling after Galway’s over Waterford, displaying a quick turn of wit following the live pitchside draw at Croke Park where Camogie president Brian Molloy managed to finally get to grips with the tubes containing the four semi-finalists.

“In case you’re wondering, Brian is not seven feet tall,” quipped Joanne of how he towered over camogie reporter Valerie Wheeler.

All good spirits, with no need for forensic analysis of TMO decision-making, and – provided by Cantwell – the good news that the camogie semi-finals in a couple of weeks would also be broadcast live.