That Thierry Henry moment

The blogs and the message boards are alive with the controversy - was France's equaliser against Ireland (assisted by the hand of Thierry Henry) cheating, gamesmanship or professionalism?

More acutely, from the point of view of a BBC journalist or commentator, how can you deal with such a moment on which the game clearly turns and which will be precisely the point of controversy it's become? Rip into the referee? Ignore it ... in the way the match officials appear to have done?

BBC commentator and CoJo online tutor Rob Nothman - you can catch his course on football commentary here - has these thoughts:

"How should a commentator describe it?

First - you need to see it properly. Sitting in a commentary box over 80 yards away doesn't often afford you the view the armchair fan receives. Most top international grounds supply small monitors but, before a definitive replay is shown, a commentator has a chasm of time to fill.

If the Henry incident teaches a commentary lesson, it is to keep describing what you can see and not to jump to any conclusions.

On BBC Radio 5 Live, commentator Simon Brotherton's priorities were spot on: 'France have scored - it's 1-1 on the night.' And then he picked up immediately on the Irish players' reaction and the way they surrounded the referee: 'They're claiming handball.'

Clearly, in real time he hadn't seen the handball. But, once he'd caught sight of the replay, he described accurately what Henry had done, leaving his expert, Mark Lawrenson, to offer the scathing opinion: 'It's blatant - it's up there with Maradona - it's frightening.'

A key lesson: as a commentator, describe what you can see and let your expert - a distinguished ex-pro - offer the opinion."