Tom Grace is the honorary treasurer of the IRFU so obviously was not in committee room four today, but the FAI could have done with him.

As Mark Tighe of the Sunday Times noted last month, Grace is a former partner at multinational financial services firm PwC and can therefore be assumed to have a head for numbers.

His counterpart in the FAI is Eddie Murray, a 79-year-old former garda superintendent. The FAI board member's contributions after the lunch break were hard to watch.

Asked by Sinn Féin TD and Cork City FORAS member Jonathan O'Brien how many bank accounts the FAI had, an unsure Murray ventured one but admitted he would have to check.

An hour later it was confirmed the association has 24 accounts. It seems like the kind of detail a former PwC partner may have come armed with ahead of an Oireachtas hearing.

Speaking of detail, Fine Gael TD Noel Rock was able to tell FAI president Donal Conway that the PDF of the Jonathan Hall report was created at 5.10pm on the day of the Gibraltar fixture, when the FAI had stated the document was discussed at a board meeting the day previous.

Subsequently Mr Conway said the report - the report which was the basis of the creation of John Delaney's new role and move away from CEO position - may have been commissioned after the first query from The Sunday Times about the €100k loan.

If Rock went with a technological scalpel, Sinn Féin's Imelda Munster went with an, er, rock.

"He came in with a last minute statement. He knows the procedures for this committee. He has furnished us with the statement but he's refusing to answer any questions in relation to the statement.

"He's also refusing to answer any questions that are ongoing in relation to his time as CEO.

"It's an absolute disgrace and it's been farcical, what has gone here, but the only good thing is that the public out there have witnesses it first-hand too."

The FAI's former CEO and current Executive Vice-President had stayed shtum for this long and was not likely to rise to this bait.

"I note your comments, Deputy Munster. I've made my statements," said Mr Delaney.

The politicians came out to play after their half-time oranges. Fianna Fáil senator Mark Daly, who had meandered through the opening 45 minutes, asked one pertinent question during the course of a rambly offering that seems to be his style. Think Matt Le Tissier in a Louis Copeland suit.

Essentially, in relation to the €100k, how long was the money owed to the creditor and what category the expenditure came under.

The FAI, camped on their own 18-yard line, were unable to give an explanation.

Mr Delaney's opening statement and willingness to deflect to Mr Conway has clearly got under the skin of the vast majority of TDs and senators in the room, but not all of them.

Fianna Fáil's Kevin O'Keeffe, he of the World Cup final tickets, compared Mr Delaney to Donald Trump due to the support he garners from the grassroots and opprobrium he attracts from elements of the media (supposedly). 

Whether this was a compliment or not, the Cork politician got Mr Delaney talking. Talking about how the CEO duties meant he could go a month without seeing his teenage daughter.

Long before this we had a less probing intervention.

"I’d be quite confident that the only thing that you could be accused of is being passionately committed to your job, passionately committed to the survival of the business… that all you were trying to do was do good."

Michael Healy Rae there.

Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger was paying attention and noticed this statement did not include a question, and branded the Kerry TD a "joke".

After a long day on Kildare Street there were very few people laughing.