THERE'S nothing as satisfying as watching sport live. And, hard on quarter-time of Saturday night's match, when Nathan Foley pelted down the ground and launched the ball to Brendan Fevola, who marked with one hand, you had to envy the boys on SEN who described that sequence to a "T", and were in fact watching it live.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of us were watching it on Channel Ten, where a ball had yet to be kicked in anger, or any other emotion for that matter.

Which is not to belittle for a second the magnificent panoply of entertainment, pomp and spectacle Ten offered us for what seemed like a weekend but apparently ran a mere 45 minutes from the listed start time.

First we revelled in an extended, scarcely disguised Toyota advertisement featuring highlights from past grand finals. The fact that we were about to see some form of representative match and not a grand final at all was refreshingly never allowed to intrude on this marvellous sponsored entertainment.

Then followed a historical dramatisation in which an arch, fluting-voiced customer masquerading as Tom Wills argued with himself about whether cricketers should keep fit over summer by playing football or forming a rifle club.

By the end, you wished he had plumped for the rifle club, as this would have precluded there ever being a football anniversary to justify the making of the video.

The rest passed in a blur of something called "glow-sticks" and the great Melbourne ceremonial tradition of blowing up a few million dollars worth of fireworks, pretty much for the hell of it.

The players were all introduced one by one, as viewer brain-cells seeped away into the ether at a somewhat greater rate. Maybe it played better at the ground.

As the Dream Team members clustered around a park bench that someone had obligingly parked on the turf, Michael Voss explained: "We've got a photo for prosperity for these guys." Well, it's nice to know they were getting a cut.

After Stephen Quartermain suggested we "Expect the unexpected" and Christi Malthouse shockingly revealed that "The biggest roar was for the Victorians", eventually some sort of football match broke out.

The particulars were hard to follow because of what were described, with annoying frequency, as "Groundbreaking innovations" and "New technology".

These consisted of cameras affixed to umpires and goal posts. The former offered spectacular panoramic views of umpires' knees and nostrils, and an unprecedented opportunity to experience motion sickness while sitting still. The latter provided distant, confusing views of goal-mouth action at angles reminiscent of a 1960s Batman TV show.

In a further groundbreaking innovation, all too often we crossed to the coaches to little informational benefit. Mark Williams was unexpectedly affable, and Mark Thompson's phone line was seemingly re-routed via China. Another technological triumph, perhaps.