Ted's moment of glory sealed with a kiss

EXUBERANCE, embarrassment, anger and even biodegradable golf balls - we had it all on sporting telly last week. Exuberance? The Sports Stadium studio was filled to the brim with it on Saturday when Bill O'Herlihy and his panel celebrated a great day for Irish rugby. Not that the Irish rugby team was actually playing or anything but that was the point.

"We are so lucky we are not there today," said a happy George Hook at half-time as he analysed Scotland's attempts to match the figure in Ireland's points-against column in Paris. Tony Ward and Jim Glennon chirpily nodded in agreement and it really was nice to see the rugby lads smiling for a change. Gloom, depression, misery... God, that's all we got for three of the last four Five Nation weekends (don't forget there was a famous victory over Wales in the middle of it all).

Of course there's always a chance, to further explain their exuberance, that George and the rest of the panel won a few bob at Cheltenham last week. Sure maybe when they bumped in to Ted Walsh at the RTE Sports Department banquet he whispered "Commanche Court, Triumph Hurdle, Cheltenham" in their ears.

The sight of said Commanche Court romping home to victory created scenes of unprecedented Irish exuberance at Cheltenham on Thursday (well, the most exuberant since the previous victory) - something that concerned Channel Four's Brough Scott a little.

"Once again we have the problem of Cheltenham's success - it is so packed now that getting about is extremely difficult. Irish exuberance is one of the great, great additions to the Cheltenham atmosphere but of course Irish exuberance and crowd control are not words that are exactly compatible in the same sentence," he said as he worriedly looked on as the Queen Mother had to hurdle over throngs of Kildare men to get to her royal box.

Brough had his own first hand experience of this Irish exuberance when he spoke to Ted after Commanche Court's triumph. "How do you feel," asked Brough, "Wonderful - I could kiss you, said Ted and he did; he landed a big smacker on Brough's cheek. When Brough regained his composure he asked Ted how much the auld horse had cost. "I couldn't give you the price... the price of a good car - and it wouldn't be a Lada."

Mention of less than nippy cars brings us to Arrows' Damon Hill who fell into our `this is so embarrassing' category last week. Now Damo has enough troubles of his own at the moment without hearing that there is a Damon Hill lookalike out there who is attempting to release a tribute record to his hero.

We saw (and heard) this man, who wasn't actually given a name (but lots of ideas came to mind), on Wednesday's Under the Moon. "In the heat of the rain, he's poll position again, with a burst of light, getting on with the fight, what a beautiful sight, the flash of red, blue and white," sang the Damo clone with great passion and intensity, almost Bono-like. It went on (and on). "Retaining the lead with the power of speed, keeping the short corners tight... he's so fast around the track, quicker lap by lap, with his flag unfurled, number one in the world." Poor old Damo.

Speaking of sources of great embarrassment - try Pierre Van Hooydonk's mouth. The Dutch striker transferred from Celtic to Nottingham Forest last week but not before getting himself in to big trouble by, according to Under the Moon presenter Danny Kelly, claiming that the £7,000 a week Celtic had offered him "might be good enough for the homeless but not for a top international striker". Ooops.

Now Danny wasn't at all impressed by this comment and invited viewers to ring in to the show and label Pierre a prat. But surely he was misquoted. He was. Phew. "I never said that," he reassured Sky Sports Centre's George Gavin on Friday and we heaved a collective sigh of relief. "I was talking about ordinary people, not homeless people," said the extraordinary Pierre. Oh well, that's okay then.

Another footballer to have a week to forget was young Stanley Collymore. It began with rumours that he had failed to turn up for training with Liverpool the previous week and, hence, was in big trouble with his manager Roy Evans. Roy, however, dismissed such talk when he spoke to Sky Sports' Nick Collins in the build-up to Monday night's match against Newcastle.

"I'll set the record straight - it'd drive you around the bend. The lad didn't turn in on Tuesday because he had toothache and then it becomes a major story on the back of newspapers. People don't turn in to work on a daily basis all over the place but when it's Stan it seems to make headlines," said Roy. ("Huffy £8 million soccer star's no show" v "Ear ache causes Bill the Butcher to take day off work shocker"? See what you mean Roy).

Anyway, Roy clearly didn't think Stanley had recovered from his toothache because he left him on the bench for Liverpool's annual 4-3 victory over Newcastle and Stanley didn't look too happy about it at all.

So much so that when his team mates snatched the winning goal in injury time and the entire Liverpool bench leapt with joy Stanley remained seated, politely clapped twice and wore an expression that suggested he'd just heard his granny had been killed in a hand gliding accident. Perhaps the toothache was still bothering him.

Throbbing molars or not presenter Dominik Diamond showed no sympathy for Stanley later in the week when he called him a `selfish scumbag' on a BBC Radio 5 live phone-in. "We'll sue," howled Stanley's agent Paul Stretford but that was before he realised that Dominik would have 30,000 odd Nottingham Forest fans to back him up in court.

"Stand up if you hate Stanley," the Forest crowd sang on Saturday when Liverpool and Stanley came to visit and, well, the entire stadium stood up. "Water off a duck's back," said Stanley to the Match of the Day reporter afterwards. Things can only get better.

And so to those biodegradable golf balls. It was one of those `now-why- didn't-I-think-of-that' moments on Beyond 2000 - Australia's answer to Tomorrow's World that cheaply fills a half hour in Network Two's Saturday schedule after Sports Stadium.

Did you ever lie awake at night worrying about the plight of golfers on cruise ships? Me too. Apparently it is illegal to hit golfballs from the decks of passenger ships because, one presumes, they play havoc with the diet of your average haddock. So golfers cruising around the auld Med or Caribbean had to wait until they hit dry land before they got in a bit of driving practice.

Until now that is. Some smartie pants has only gone and invented biodegradable golf balls, made largely from corn and potato starch, which decompose an hour after they land in the ocean. Brilliant. We can all have a decent night's sleep now.