DID anyone else notice the horrible irony in a bloke called Rooney getting a late winner at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday?

Or the irony of a bloke called Rooney diving over in the scoring zone to ire his opponents in the most irksome fashion?

Now, although you might find this hard to believe given the media circus that now follows him, we are not talking about a chunky Scouser with a tendency to fall over imaginary legs.

And - amazing though it may seem given the never-ending and totally tedious fall-out of a football match played ages ago - nor are we talking about Arsenal, mid-table Manchester United or any of that ongoing childish nonsense.

No, just like they did at God's own stadium on Saturday, we are swapping the round ball for an oval one. And the Mr Rooney in question is Aussie rugby league winger Luke, whose try with 33 seconds to go condemned Great Britain and Ireland to another heartbreaking defeat to the Kangaroos.

It was not so much dj vu as Groundhog Day.

Just as in the Ashes series last year, the Brits stand toe-to-toe with the world champions for about 79 minutes before losing in the dying seconds.

Still, there's a long way to go in the tournament and what matters is who wins at Elland Road in the final, where Great Britain will hopefully meet the Kangaroos once more (and surely this time have Leeds try-scoring machine Danny McGuire in from the start).

If they do, it will be interesting to see who tournament chiefs pick to referee the match following the disgraceful furore over Glen Black's appointment for Saturday's clash at Eastlands.

The controversy erupted thanks to complaints from the Aussie camp that the Kiwi was not up to the task - and, surprise surprise, it all played perfectly into their hands.

Call it cute, call it professional, call it clever - I'd like to suggest the Aussies' public criticism of an impartial referee before he had even taken to the field was nothing short of unbridled gamesmanship that, on another day in another sport, could fall into the realms of bringing the game into disrepute.

Keeping with the Manchester City link, Kevin Keegan was charged on similar grounds by the FA after simply saying some of the refereeing decisions in their match against Newcastle last week were wrong and affected the game in the Magpies' favour. He had a point (even if, as a Manc, I am looking at it through blue-tinted specs).

Here, the Aussies had blasted that Black, a qualified, neutral official, was not good enough to take charge of this match before he had even cleaned his whistle.

If that isn't bringing the game into disrepute, it certainly discredits it and meant that, while focus should have been solely on the sporting spectacle, many eyes were instead trained on the ref.

Still, it got the result the Aussies wanted, as pressure was put on Black to prove to them he was up to their task - to effectively be unbiased on the side of the Aussies. Which he was, especially when it came to the painfully slow play-the-balls.

Now, what would those cunning Aussies have said if an Englishmen were to take charge? Perhaps they'd have claimed he wouldn't be neutral - thus making him prove beyond all doubt he wasn't favouring the Lions.

And if it was an Aussie? They'd perhaps have claimed he would try to overcompensate for his national bias by siding too much with the Poms - making him prove beyond all doubt he wasn't.

It's the kind of puerile mind games you're more likely to see emanating from the other side of Manchester, a dreadful little place called Old Trafford. And it's enough to make you want to throw soup.

TKO was this week written by Peter Martini.

Updated: 10:36 Tuesday, November 02, 2004