Rovers v Cork City. TV View.
JJ Devaney
There were few surprises from Saturday’s Airtricity League
showdown between Sligo Rovers and Cork City. Rovers won, again. Anthony Elding
scored again. And in TV land Eoin Hand was miserable. The only real surprise
was the line up for RTE’s coverage of the game. Aidan Power was in the hot seat
usually frequented by Peter Collins or on occasion Dara Maloney. Power, more
usually associated in the past with children’s TV and light entertainment has
been struggling to get work and to be fair he didn’t do a terrible job ably
abetted by former UCD player and MNS regular, Tony McDonnell.
You just got the feeling that Power, despite his smooth
delivery, was reading from a template: ‘Sligo Rovers are doing really well and Elding
is amazing’. It was hard to shake the idea that that was the sum total of his
League of Ireland knowledge and at any moment he was going to invite the
viewers to text in the Sligo Rovers player they thought looked most like a
member of Westlife. Apart from that it was pretty plain sailing for the studio
duo with McDonnell only once losing the run of himself by describing Elding and
Cretaro’s partnership as ‘subliminal’.
There is nothing ‘subliminal’ about Anthony Elding for Sligo
Rovers fans. His impact on the club’s early season good fortune has been clear.
It’s fair to say that he may not have had his best game on Saturday in front of
the TV cameras but he scored again in another Rovers win. RTE may have given
Elding the big build-up in the pre-match analysis but resident soccer grump
Eoin Hand wasn’t in the generous mood and had some choice words for the former
Leeds striker particularly in the second half. Hand’s first salvo against
Elding came mid-way thru the second half: ‘He is quite a lazy player really’
Hand opined. It was interesting that Eoin Hand finished that sentence with the
word ‘really’ because ‘really?’ is how most Rovers fans would have greeted that
opinion of our new striker.
Eoin Hand wasn’t finished there in his diatribe against
Elding. ‘He really is the quintessential journey-man’. At a rough count Eoin
Hand had 13 clubs in his playing career so I suppose he is well qualified to
make such an assertion. Finally, after Elding rolled home the penalty, his 9th
of the season, Hand delivered the coup de
grace describing Elding as ‘ineffectual’. If doubling his sides lead
against a good side in the league is ‘ineffectual’ then Rovers manager Ian
Barraclough will take ‘ineffectual’ all season long.
Hand has always struck me as particularly miserable pundit.
Adrian Eames explained the drop in Rovers attendance was down to the miserable
blustery weather. Those Rovers fans who watched from their couches might as
well have been outside in the Showgrounds because on Saturday, via television, Eoin
Hand brought the misery indoors.
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