RTÉ channel-hopping is not a marriage made in Heaven

TV View: Cork v Waterford v Dublin v Meath? It was a scheduling clash, albeit an unavoidable one, that was as unfortunate as the timing of the weddings on Saturday of Steven Gerrard and Gary Neville.

Decked out in our new hats, one from the Blood and Bandages 2007 Summer collection, the other a fetching combination of blue-ish and navy-ish with the name of an Irish department store emblazoned across the front, we were desperate to see both - the games, not the weddings - live and uninterrupted, but as Wayne Rooney will attest, you just can't be in two places at the one time, even if you have a helicopter at your disposal. Which, alas, we don't.

But, of course, we tried to be in two places at the one time, and in our channel-hopping frenzy we missed six goals in Thurles in the opening 36 minutes, the tally reaching seven by the 46th, eight 10 minutes later. But we were there for Cork's penalty. Which they missed.

Indeed, every time we left RTÉ1 for RTÉ2, helicoptering in a televisual kind of way from Croke Park to Semple Stadium, we were greeted by the sight of grown Waterford men embracing each other and Marty Morrissey howling: "Waaaaaaaaaaaaah, what a cracker!!" So we abandoned Croke Park altogether in the first half, returning at the break just in time to hear Tommy Lyons describing the game as "breathtaking" and Colm O'Rourke declaring, "It would restore one's faith in the game of Gaelic football."

And the only bits we'd seen were the bits that clashed with the goals in Thurles.

By now we felt like Sky News and their attempts to cover the footballers' weddings; like ourselves they were, more often than not, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To add to their woes Michael Carrick was knot-tying at the very same time as Stevie G and Gary Nev, as they're dubbed in the trade, although, much like his presence in the Manchester United midfield last season, Michael was hopelessly overshadowed on the big day.

We were, though, given a glimpse of Michael and his bride (you could have decked us with a feather: she was blonde and skinnier than your average pencil), as they left the church. Lovely they looked, too. As did Gary's flower girls.

"WHAT HAPPENED INSIDE?" yelled the Sky reporter at one of them outside the Manchester cathedral.

"CAN'T SAY," she replied, somewhat enigmatically, leaving us wondering if Gary had disputed a declaration by the vicar, prompting the congregation to surround the holy man in a semi-threatening way. But judging by the smiles as the happy couple exited the cathedral all disputes had been resolved. "I do, obviously," Gary very probably said, and with that he'd signed the biggest contract of his career.

John and Toni Terry had signed a contract too, by all accounts one of those £1-million exclusive deals with an Helloor OK!-type magazine, which explained why all Sky could show us on Friday of their wedding was the big white tent their people had attached to Blenheim Palace. (If you pay loads for it they rename it a 'marquee' - but it's still a tent.)

"What would Winston Churchill make of it all?" sighed the boy Sky newsreader, clearly not giddy with excitement at the obscured sight of the Chelsea and England captain marrying in the very spot where Winston made his earthly debut.

What he didn't realise was that when Winston said, "We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches . . ." he was quite probably anticipating the nasty tabloids attempting to steal snaps of footballers' weddings, thus banjaxing their exclusive deals with Hello/OK!

But if all they managed of John and Toni's big day was a stolen, blurry pic or two, Winston, if he was still with us, would have said, "Close, but no cigar."

But enough of weddings; back to the coupling of Dublin and Meath. Colm O'Rourke had no doubts: Graham Geraghty would be the day's best man. "He's a bit of a flawed genius - like Georgie Best was, or Gascoigne, or our friend Van Gogh the painter - maybe he'll cut off his ear at some stage today, just after he sticks his third in the net," he said. Tommy Lyons giggled, but in a puzzled kind of way.

In the end, though, Dublin prevailed, Sunflowers one and all, despite Geraghty's best efforts. Not that we saw much of it, other than the bits that clashed with the bits that filled the bits between the avalanche of scores in Thurles.