We had our own jersey clash situation in the MNS studio this week minutes before the programme.
Roddy strolled into studio looking his usual dapper self (except when he's wearing dodgy Hawaiian shirts), only to discover that Louis Copeland's finest stripy shirt was strobing like mad. Strobing is when it looks like the pattern on somebody's shirt is moving when they make any movement on television.
In a studio situation it looks awful and a quick run to the wardrobe department solved the problem, when a plain shirt was delivered to Mr Collins a couple of minutes before we went live.
Roddy had initially tried to cover his offending shirt by wearing Richie Sadliers suit jacket, but it was like trying to fit Lennox Lewis into Bernard Dunne's jacket. A non-runner from the off. As any mathematician will tell you, extra large doesn't go into medium ever.
And speaking of mathematicians, our programme editor this week Mark McKenna knows all about multiplication, subtraction and division.
Within two seconds of me talking about Galway United settling for 23 points from a possible 24 to play for, he was on the talkback into my earpiece telling me that it's not possible to achieve 23 points from a possible 24.
Impressive on a number of counts.
Firstly, he was quick enough to realise this and secondly he was listening to the programme output, because so often the editor has ten things to deal with during every programme. Actually listening to what's being said sometimes slips down the order of importance.
Mark was worried that I might have made him sound like a nerd by highlighting the fact that he had spotted my desperate gaffe, but he has other more pressing mathematical issues to worry about in reality.
Such as how many points do his beloved Luton Town need to accumulate before they have a positive points total in League 2 having been deducted 30 points pre-season. (It's okay, he's from Luton so he's allowed to follow them with impunity).
Richie spent the entire programme worried that we were going to stitch him up after Tony O'Donoghue's loving glance at him after the Hertha Berlin v St Pat's preview on the programme last week, but we wouldn't be so obvious as to do that so soon after last week's programme.
However, come the end of season review, you can be sure that that look which gave us a laugh last week, will be dredged up once again, and I'm sure we'll laugh at it second time around as well.
In fairness, Tony has been telling us ever since then, that he would like to have rerecorded the piece with that look (If you haven't seen it, it's hard to explain in words), but he was under huge time pressure to send a news report back for one of the bulletins and didn't have time to redo the piece.
Philip Quinn was reminding us in studio of the 1983 season when Athlone won the league by 16 points in a season where 4 points were awarded for away wins, 3 for a home win, 2 for an away draw, and 1 for a home draw. Somebody somewhere thought this might be a good idea. Actually mathematician, Mark McKenna would have loved that scenario!
The point Philip was making was that Bohemians likely winning margin could surpass that of Athlone, even allowing for a mere 3 points for a win, home or away. It really is an incredible achievement.
Next Friday Bohemians face their great rivals Shamrock Rovers, and the Hoops supporters would like nothing better than to put a spoke in the Gypsies' wheels. It's live on RTÉ Two on Friday night and should be a game to savour.
The atmosphere will be red hot, and this is an occasion when most neutrals would probably be up for Rovers to keep the title race alive for as long as possible. Even if the Gypsies were to slip up against the Hoops, it's inconceivable that they would not go on to claim the title anyway, but at least if the race was alive for an extra week or two, nobody would complain.
We received a good response to the report in which Blathnid Ni Cofaigh of the Afternoon Show took her three boys to the Carlisle Grounds to see Bray takes on St Pat's. Many viewers were pleased with the item, and Blaithnid herself enjoyed the game. It was a pity that it was such disappointing match with no Bray goals for the boys to celebrate, but maybe they'll come back again to another game, and if they do, I hope they get hooked.
There's lots more eircom league action to enjoy on RTÉ TV, Radio and Online in the coming days. As I mentioned, Rovers v Bohs is live on Friday night, and then next Tuesday afternoon, its the second leg of St Pats v Hertha Berlin in the UEFA Cup live from the RDS at 4.45, kick off at 5pm, with more live soccer to follow the next Friday.
Best of luck to Pats, and try to get along to the RDS if you can to support them.
