Jacks can relax: the replay's going to be on the box

RTE this evening headed off a possible human rights incident in the capital when they announced that they had reached agreement with the GAA to broadcast the Dublin-Meath replay live on Sunday week. For the first time ever, ever, ever, RTE will transmit live championship matches simultaneously, with the already scheduled double-bill of Donegal v Tyrone in football and Cork v Waterford in hurling going out on RTE 2 while the Dublin-Meath rematch is shown on RTE 1, with a 4.15 pm throw-in. Messrs Brolly and O'Rourke should be available for a bit of overtime - the Dubs-Meath game is on at the same time as the hurling so they'll be able to critique the Croker action in their usual inimitable way - but RTE will, no doubt, be frantically attempting to clone Michael Lyster for the occasion. (Hint: use a cardboard cutout and a ventriloquist. Nobody will notice the difference, honest.)

We can all prepare, I suppose, for a tsunami of hype leading up to June 17th, the crescendo now significantly amplified by the fact that the match will be shown live on de telly. In fairness to RTE, they're simply going where the punters want to be: the drawn game last Sunday was watched by a huge audience and the replay is likely to attract a similar level of interest. But it's not quite the World Cup final, lads, so take it easy on the superlatives, okay?

Meanwhile, like Pooh Bear with his arse stuck in Rabbit's hole (no, not THAT hole!), we continue to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. Only four weeks and a bit to go now compadres, not that long in the scheme of things. Why, there are many things one could do in that time. One could, for example, sit an entire Leaving Cert. Or, if one were Paris Hilton (which, one hastens to clarify, one is most definitely not) one could serve a prison sentence and still have a week and a bit left over to sort out tickets and whatnot for round one of the qualifiers. Yes, it is beginning to drag, isn't it? Oh well, it could be worse - at least Prison Break is back on RTE 2.