"HE just did enough there, " is a vastly over-used phrase.

George Hamilton was at it during the Manchester United versus AC Milan game.

"Paulo Maldini just did enough to deny Wayne Rooney there, " and the following night Andy Gray had Ashley Cole "doing just enough to put Steven Gerrard off." Ever notice the way it's always decent defenders that are doing just enough? If that was Djimi Traore instead of Maldini it would be all, "The defender was caught on his heels there and was lucky to get away with that, " or "Rooney stole a yard when Traore went to sleep and should have done better with the finish."

But reputations tend to be jealously protected by sports commentators and analysts. If you are generally heralded as being a good player, it will take a pretty catastrophic run of form to lose that tag, and vice versa.

Equally so, Denis Irwin managed the neat trick of being an "unsung hero" for the duration of a glittering career, despite being referred to as just that in pretty much every game he ever played. But "regularly-acclaimed hero" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Cricket has a reputation to live up to as well, that of being long and boring. It's not of course, it's just the Marmite of sports, an acquired taste and generally more popular in other countries than here. And the Cricket World Cup has had loads to recommend it and reel in the floating punter, from the impressive performances of our own lads to Matthew Hayden's elegant brutality at the crease.

The BBC's coverage though almost felt like they only wanted to appeal to the diehard fan. Throughout the tournament they took the bizarre decision to split up the action from a match in their highlights show by inserting some spurious package between innings. So you'd see a team struggle to get to 200 runs, think they may be in trouble here and I wonder if their bowlers are up to the task andf you're stuck watching nonsense on umpiring techniques or some such for 15 minutes. Ridiculous and very annoying. People watch highlights to avoid boredom, but it's like the BBC went out of their way to create some by adding their own tea-break.

Thankfully their coverage of the World Snooker Championships is much better. Aside from the general excellence of their pundits, they also have Hawkeye, which while looking eerily like some rubbish snooker game that used be available for the Commodore 64 is actually a brilliant tool to put viewers in the players' shoes.

The snooker also provided the saddest bit of TV from the sporting week - Ken Doherty's interview after his exit from the Championships. It wasn't really like an interview, coming across more as if somebody had found a way of amplifying his thoughts and his whole internal monologue came spilling out for us, as he mused that the years are passing and that he had felt this could be his year and how he could have just lost his last chance.

Doherty (right) finally caught himself at the end saying, "Maybe I'm just feeling a bit low, " before tailing off.

When pretty much every sports star these days is adept at putting up a facade for TV interviews this was one of those rare moments with somebody expressing themselves in an thoroughly honest fashion, the raw emotion being impossible to disguise. You just wanted to give him a hug and remind him that there's always next year.

One person who has absolutely no difficulty with the facade is Roy Keane. During Sky's coverage of Sunderland and Burnley, there was a brilliant splitscreen shot showing the reactions of both manager and chairman as David Connolly stepped up to take a vital penalty. Niall Quinn couldn't have been more animated if Wile E Coyote was chasing him with an acme anvil, all clenched teeth and then pumping fists of joy (his lovely wife Gillian was with him, who we haven't seen in a few years. Bet Sunderland wash all their gear with Surf). Keane simply stood and stared. Then stood and stared some more. The rate at which he chewed his gum didn't even alter.

The English media in particular seem fascinated with Keane's Buddha-like calm on the sidelines. They've always caricatured him as some kind of snarling, bloodthirsty maniac and seem to be struggling with the fact that where there used to be the smell of sulphur there's now the whiff of lavender. But even after countless reaction shots of Keane on the sidelines not reacting, they'll keep showing him and we'll keep watching. Because no matter how calm and mellow he may seem you just know he has the capacity for the unexpected, that at any moment Bruce Banner could morph into The Hulk. Reputations like that take a long time to lose.