Much Sutch guff from Sky but Keano's Cats no phonies

TV View:Screaming Lord Sutch would have thrived among modern-day sports commentators, not for his zaniness or off-the-wall proclamations - although more of the latter later - but rather for the decibel level at which he delivered his pitch.

It seems many soccer commentators are past pupils of the same school for shouting. Volume control is abandoned in favour of shrieking the word "gooaalllll", followed by hyperbole that runs the gamut of A to B from the hyperventilating commentator's lexicon.

"Wonderful," "brilliant," "magnificent," "superb" cascade from the lips in torrents of superlatives; these words are often describing what to many viewers barely crests the mundane. Radio lends itself better to that amphitheatre of noisy eulogy, as people cannot see the fare, and the denial of one of the senses tends to heighten the others.

Occasionally there are matches that justify the hype and hoopla - Sky Sports' soccer coverage is the market leader in pre- and post-match guff - and it was perhaps apposite that one of those occasions was last Friday night at the Stadium of Light.

Sunderland's 3-2 victory over Burnley was a genuinely exciting, tension-laden occasion. It doesn't matter about the quality, although the winning goal would be a contender for goal of the season, as much for the construction as the execution, but rather this was an encounter between two teams on the cusp of achievement.

Burnley travelled to Sunderland looking to sustain hopes of the play-offs while the home side, roared on by a crowd of 44,000-plus, needed a victory to push them ever closer to promotion. Obviously with Derby's defeat at Crystal Place yesterday, their return to the Premiership became a reality.

It was appropriate that a couple of Irish players, Clinton Morrison and Mark Kennedy, who both played with Roy Keane in the national team, should dole out a couple of favours to their former team-mate - but back to Friday night.

Sky couldn't resist the temptation to offer several close-up shots of Keane and Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn and his wife, Gillian. In the case of the former, it offered little to embellish events on the pitch as Keane remained, outwardly, largely cool, but Quinn epitomised the unfettered raw emotion of the occasion.

His reactions were those of the average supporter, vacillating between ecstasy and despair. It was easy to see Quinn's natural empathy with what was happening on the pitch as a far cry from the studied and wooden "happiness" of some of his Premiership counterparts. Sunderland's has been a remarkable odyssey from ragtag to riches.

On the same night, Nigel Starmer-Smith offered a masterclass in the nuances of incisive, accurate, understated commentary in Setanta's coverage of the Magners Celtic League game between the Ospreys and Leinster.

He eschewed the verbose, intrusive prattling that veers dangerously toward the "look-at-all-the-homework-I-did-before-the-match-and-how-much-I-know" ego trip.

The former England scrumhalf's observations are based on knowledge and that quiet assurance makes it far easier on the ear for the viewer.

It was a small condolence for Leinster supporters, who once again watched their team teeter towards victory only to snatch defeat through indiscipline, albeit mitigated by some atrocious officiating.

Earlier in the week this column was poised to offer an opinion on Ronaldo-gate, a three-man crusade against the Manchester United and Portugal winger, but having observed RTÉ's Champions League coverage, there doesn't seem any point.

John Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady have reversed into a cul de sac that isolates them from many of their professional contemporaries and no amount of cajoling from Bill O'Herlihy can coax them from their hermit-like obduracy.

Three things: they don't rate Ronaldo; they're not for turning; and they revel in his occasional mediocrity or, worse, cling to it like a comfy blanket that swaddles their prejudice.

They suggest the young Portuguese player is overrated, a fate they may share unless they remove the blinkers. At the first utterance of the word Ronaldo in the pre- and post-match punditry, there is a growing temptation to simply turn down the sound until the rattles are returned to the pram.

The Cricket World Cup may have ended in a bit of a farce as Sri Lanka tried to win a world cup final by moonlight but even casual fans of the game can't but have been captivated by the performance of the Australian Adam Gilchrist, whose 149 runs from 109 balls, including eight sixes, was a compelling example of a sportsman at his peak.

It was one of those rare occasions in sports commentary when it was time to open the box labelled superlatives.