On the evidence of last night, the Chicago Bears are in for a long old season. Admittedly, after just one pre-season game, it's a bit early to be calling for heads to roll, but the Chicago coaches will not have been impressed by the performances of most of their expected starters. The official attendance for the first professional football game in Ireland, the American Bowl at Croke Park, was 30,269, which will have just about satisfied the organisers.

Whether the quality of the football on display will have satisfied the genuine fans, or indeed the US television audience, is another matter.

As expected, both teams used their big name starters for only the first quarter, and no one will have been more disappointed about that than the Bears' new quarter-back, Rick Mirer, who did nothing to enhance his reputation. Mirer was unable to orchestrate anything that even remotely resembled and offensive drive. He threw seven passes, amassed 16 yards and earned only one first down.

Of course Mirer can not take all of the blame for a sterile first half performance from Chicago. His front line gave him little protection, his running-backs got nowhere, and Pittsburgh, when they had the ball, were inclined to hold on to it for long periods before scoring.

His opposite number, Kordell Stewart, looked more convincing, although his tendency to exhibit both the best and worst of his undoubted qualities in any single play will not have settled the minds of his coaches.

Stewart completed seven passes for an impressive 131 yards during his brief appearance, but he also regularly found himself scrambling desperately in the backfield having failed to pick up his prime receiver quickly enough. Perhaps that will come.

Pittsburgh took less than three minutes and only five plays to score the first touchdown. Jerome Bettis got the glory with a three-yard run, but it had been set up in the previous play with a fine, 44yard pass from Stewart to wide receiver Charles Johnson.

There were less than five minutes left in the first half before the Bears got their second first down. By then the Steelers led 13-0 after two long field goals by Chris Jacke. The Bears finally registered their first points with two minutes left when Jeff Jaeger kicked an excellent 47-yard field goal.

Things weren't looking any better for the Bears at the start of the second half as Jim Miller, now in at quarterback for the Steelers, chewed up eight minutes on the clock with a 19-play drive which finished with a 35-yard field goal by Jacke.

The next minute, enter Chicago running-back Darnell Autry, a rookie out of Northwestern, who broke two tackles at the line of scrimmage, spun off a third and set off on a 46-yard touchdown run.

It was a marvellous effort, but it only served to emphasise how uninspired the game had been as a whole. After watching the All Blacks hammer the Wallabies the day before in an exhibition of intelligent, skilful and passionately violent rugby - with no commercial time outs - is was easy to understand why American football, unlike basketball, has failed to make any significant inroads into the sporting psyches here.

The Steelers managed two more touchdowns, the first a four-yard run from George Jones, and the second, in the dying minutes, from Jones again, this time from 35 yards.

In between the Jones Show, another Bears quarterback, Steve Stenstrom, hooked up with rookie tight end Tremayne Allen for three-yard touchdown pass.

For much of the second half the audience contented themselves by engaging in an obligatory but wellchoreographed Mexican Wave. The cheerleaders cheered, the fireworks fired, the parachutists sailed down and the Corrs sang the national anthems - though the gunna screach went untranslated for our visitors.

Something else went untranslated, at least for a time. You see, it had been reported that one of the Steelers stars, linebacker Greg Lloyd, has been less than enamoured with his experience on these emerald shores. Apparently room service was not up to scratch, everyone has been most unpleasant and - if this can be believed - the taxi drivers were overcharging. Greg is on about $3 million a year.

But Greg had some supporters in the audience, and they had arrived down from Derry with a lovely big banner which they draped over the New Stand. It carried a brief, three-word message for Greg. The first word was pog.

We happened to point this out to the NFL PR man as he passed by. When next we looked, the Derry banner was nowhere to be seen.