From Facebook Live to prime-time RTÉ, there are any number of outlets for new and old pundits to showcase their trade these days.
Good punditry elevates sport. Listen, whatever you think of “modern day football,” it’s still better than re-runs of Coronation on a Sunday afternoon.
How many sh*te soccer matches are there? Relative to good ones, probably the majority of them aren’t entertaining but it’s still sport and it’s still worth watching. It’s always worth watching. And the soap opera continues with the analysis and debate that follows by good pundits.
Monday Night Football on Sky Sports broadcasts some dud games but no-one gives a toss – they still tune in to hear what Carragher and Neville have to say on the week’s events.
Well, here are the best that their counterparts with an O’Neill’s size five have to offer.
NB. Martin McHugh probably would’ve made the list if he didn’t call Colm Cooper a two-trick pony.
And, let’s face it, you can’t call Colm Cooper a two-trick pony and get away with it.
8. Kevin McStay
Management’s gain is punditry’s loss.
McStay always spoke like a manager who offered a much-needed analytical insight into The Sunday Game highlights show at the time.
Has been out of the game (because he’s in the real game) for two seasons now but he could be picked up by anyone tomorrow and do another brilliant job.
7. Oisin McConville
Might speak in monotone but he usually speaks pure, brilliant sense.
A player who performed at the highest level, a manager who’s taken one of the best clubs in Ireland, a psychologist now involved in a county hurling set-up. He’s an intelligent man with fascinating experience to bring to the table and he’s a passionate Gael with a very distinct idea of what he wants to see on a pitch.
6. Marc Ó Sé
Probably wouldn’t class himself as a pundit yet considering his inter-county boots have only been hanging a number of months now but what Marc Ó Sé has shown since his retirement is a fantastic ability to hold an audience.
He’s as close as the public will get to a current player in broadcast right now and he’s got some serious stories from recent years to tell that he isn’t afraid to tell.
A raconteur with an impressive profile. A new face, a fresh voice. Someone needs to sign him up permanently.
5. Rory Kavanagh
What a debut season this man is having.
The Donegal legend is straight-talking, he’s honest, he curbs nothing. He, too, tells his stories of playing against these players and teams that we’re watching and he does it with complete openness.
He knows what it takes to get to the top and he’ll have no bother telling you if it doesn’t look like someone’s on their way there.
He’s the representative of current players everywhere on The Sunday Game.
Former Donegal player Rory Kavanagh feels the GAA have "pulled the wool over people's eyes" with new football championship format pic.twitter.com/YWTVxBeMFW
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) February 26, 2017
4. James Horan
Management’s loss is punditry’s gain.
Tactically astute, a hyperbole debunker, another man everyone shuts up to listen to. Has no problem railing against a trend or telling the GAA what’s what when it needs to be told.
3. Tomás Ó Sé
Never short of an opinion and never shy of voicing it. In touch with the common man, the everyday gripes and he has his finger on the pulse of most counties.
When he gets passionate about a topic, he comes to glorious life, his Kerry accent thickens and he rhymes off some magical phrases like the Cork players looking like a bunch of sheep being released into a field for the first time.
When he’s not interested in a topic, it’s just as entertaining.
2. Jim McGuinness
Speaks with such conviction and authority about the game he’s watching that you can’t help but believe that what he’s saying isn’t only true, but it’s the only possible way of looking at the matter.
1. Joe Brolly
Listen, when Joe Brolly gets carried away with himself on some pointless agenda that Gaelic Football’s ‘shite’, it’s a frustratingly, pain-staking watch. And yet, and still, every outlet and journalist and fan in Ireland will be reacting to it in the coming hours and days.
They’ll disagree with him, they’ll lambaste him, some will hold him up as the flag-bearer of everything they want to say and, regardless, the nation will be debating once more off the back of another thought-provoking Joe Brolly opinion.
Never before or ever again has or will a footballer transcend his All-Ireland winning career like he has. He was a winner and a character as a footballer. Now, he’s a pundit. Not an ex-footballer, not a name. He’s made a completely new name again.
What the Derry native doesn’t get enough credit for these days amid his ingeniously divisive soundbites is that he’s truly an expert in the game. He knows football, he knows players and he doesn’t just get the tactical and systematic element of Gaelic Football, he also knows what sort of mettle a man should have before he can become a winner.
Brolly’s articulate, he’s wildly entertaining and he could argue black white if he wanted to and convince half the country that he’s right too. But he’s more than just good TV and the best agenda-setter, he’s a top analyst. When he wants to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep0OuOfWS6o
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