Just what was the story with Tommy Lyons on The Sunday Game? As often as we sympathised with him when he became too easy a target in the Dublin hotseat, his performance last weekend was so downright sloppy we couldn't let it pass.

Seconds into his 'analysis' of the Derry-Laois quali"er and Tommy declares: "Laois played some fantastic football today" Today?

The game had been played on the Saturday. Hold on, the sentence isn't "nished yet. "f and certainly were far more up for this game than they were last year after being beaten in the Leinster championship."

Far more up for it than last year?

Last year Laois beat Tyrone, the reigning All Ireland champions, once they were dumped from Leinster.

Remember Billy Sheehan's mad face? Remember them all being in Tyrone's face? When had Laois ever been more up for a game? Not to mention they then beat Meath and Offaly and took Mayo, eventual All Ireland "nalists, to a replay.

Then, after making the sound if obvious assessment that it had been an "entertaining" game, Tommy focuses on where Derry went wrong rather than where they went right in beating this Laois team that were so "up" for it. He cuts to a clip of them bringing the ball out of defence, "going nowhere". The astute, rational . . . and thankfully for Tommy, mannerly . . . Anthony Tohill politely interjects, pointing out that it was "maybe an isolated incident", and that overall Derry moved the ball "reasonably well", as their tally of 118 would indicate.

Then Tommy shows two clips where Derry struggle under the high ball. According to Tommy, "in the last few years traditionally full backs haven't been big men". Fair point but Kevin McCloy is a big man, one of the best full-backs in the country, and as Tohill points out, normally comfortable under the high ball; the two clips, again, isolated incidents.

Tommy's not "nished. "I think Laois will be happy leaving the championship."

By now Pat Spillane's bullshit detector is fully operational. "They'll be happy?" he asks incredulously.

And with good reason. In three of the last four years Laois have reached the last eight of the All Ireland. Last year they made it to a league semi"nal. This year, no All Ireland quarter"nal, no league semi-"nal. How could they be happy?

But Tommy is adamant. "I think they'll be happy, Pat, " he says with that un"appable, unashamed pose of his. "I think Liam Kearns is happy.

He knows what he's got to do."

Really, Tommy? You might fool some of the peoplef. .

BLAST FROM THE PAST TURNS UP A GEM

Interesting choice of programming on RTE 2 last Wednesday night, repeating two episodes of a series called Summer Pride, first shown in 1995.

One centred on life at Glen Rovers, paying particular attention to the club's links with North Mon. Among the luminaries featured were Liam O Tuama, Michael Ellard (captured sans the eternal cigarette, curiously enough), Tomas Mulcahy, camogie dynamo Mary Newman McCarthy and North Mon staff member Murt Murphy.

The latter waxed lyrical about one North Mon youth, a latecomer to hurling who, though not a member of Glen Rovers and indeed not even born in the country, far less on Cork's northside, had put in hours of practice with caman and sliotar to, as Murphy put it, "make up for lost time".

The young man in question?

Let's just say he's the guy who'll be wearing the red jersey with number seven on the back at Croke Park this afternoon.