Des snaps hyenas but Tigers have last laugh in Thomond

TV View:"I have to say, I would rather meet a hungry bear in the woods than a focused Munster pack," Sky Sports' man with the mic, Mark Robson, admitted as they were about to kick off in Thomond Park on Saturday afternoon.

Eighty-five minutes and 57 seconds later and Leicester were focusing on a lively night on the town in Limerick, having wrecked the "Goodbye to the pre-refurbished Thomond" party by standing up and fighting just a little more feverishly than their hosts.

Over on RTÉ, later in the evening, it wasn't the Pope (aka Brent) who was doing a number two in the woods, it was George Hook. Overcome by trepidation, he feared Munster's defeat by Leicester was a portent of troubled times ahead, not just in the European Cup but in the Six Nations too. "If global warming delivers a monsoon (in Croke Park) our rugby manhood will be castrated," he said.

As is always the case on these occasions, Brent and Tom McGurk paused for a moment while attempting to compute what they'd just heard, and then intimated that George was being overly gloomy. He stood his ground, though, it could very well, he reckoned, be time for Irish rugby to batten down the hatches.

There are, of course, those who wouldn't mind at all if Ireland's rugby manhood was castrated in Croke Park, but much as they might miss it, they have to let Rule 42 go. Anyway, as we know, Ireland's compromise rules' manhood was castrated not all that long ago at HQ, so it wouldn't be a first, the Aussies returning home with more swag in their bag than their hosts bargained for.

That, then, is one of the very many reasons why we wish Setanta and Aisake Ó hAilpín well Down Under, as they attempt to make their way in Aussie Rules, as documented by Tall Dark and Ó hAilpín on RTÉ last week. A very, very lovely glimpse into the Ó hAilpíns' world it was too.

"I wouldn't mind a bit of rain now and then," sighed Aisake as he headed for training with Carlton under yet another cloudless sky. Back home, Seán Óg was hard at work in his Ulster Bank office, the rain bouncing off the path outside.

Setanta and Aisake, the professionals, thought of home as they knocked a sliotar back and forth between them in an Australian park. Seán Óg, the amateur, left his office at 5.30 back home, in the cold and rain, for training. You got the feeling they all pined for a bit of what the other had, if only there was a "something in between" in their very separate lives.

"I know I'm as fit as I can be now, but I know if I went training with Seán Óg tomorrow morning he'd do what I can do now, he'd do even more," said Setanta.

"I look at it and I think it's a shame to see Seán Óg busting his ass in work with the bank, and then busting his ass again (in training), whereas he could just bust his ass playing professional sport and get paid and not have worries about the bank.

"But they're the cards he'd been dealt, he can't do anything about it. I suppose if you asked him would he swap his three All-Irelands and captaining Cork to an All-Ireland I'm sure he'd never change that for the world, I suppose that's where we're different," he smiled. "(But) I know I'm living his dream."

Maybe, but you wonder. Watch Seán Óg at work and watch him as he returned to Rotuma, the Fijian island where he was born, and you see a man so rounded you can only assume he's got the balance in his life perfectly right, even if the strain is maddening. Maybe there's a lot to be said for sporting "amateurism".

Croke Park, Seán Óg's second home, is where Des Cahill was sent to practise with his camera ahead of his challenge on Wild Trials Extinct to snap hyenas in Kenya. Dublin v Offaly, the producers reckoned, should prepare him for the task ahead. D'you know, folk have sued for less.

We learnt that 45,000 years ago hyenas lived in Cork, in a cave near Doneraile. There are endless possibilities here for laughing hyena gags, but we're bigger than that. Ish.

Anyway, having snapped Dublin v Offaly, Des set off for Kenya, confident he could master the art of photography.

"I bought a good camera a couple of years ago, I started off taking funny angles of flowers, not something every man would admit to," he confessed.

Repeat: Des's assignment was to photograph hyenas, so we're at a loss to explain why one of his three entries in the Wild Trial celebrity competition was a pic of two lions making lurve. Perhaps he took his inspiration from Dublin v Offaly in Croke Park? Repeat: folk have sued for less.