In Thursday’s Hospital Pass, we talk second division commentators, guinea pigs in Longford – and manage to put “cutting edge analysis” and “Marty Morrissey” into a single sentence.
Mickey Harte says he has no problem if people want to speak to RTE after matches. Except, that is, if he’s one of those people.
Because he does have a problem. And it’s down to the national broadcaster’s shameful, juvenile and downright apocalyptic treatment of Brian Carthy, the station’s sidekick commentator for many years, who remains the sidekick commentator today, and is likely to be nothing more than a sidekick commentator until he hangs up the microphone.
Which, given the way in which his secondary status has been underlined over the past few days, could be sooner rather than later.
He’s clearly a sound fella, is Brian, and he’s made a bunch of friends among the managers, officials and volunteers among the grassroots of the GAA the length and brea… You get the drift.
But surely his partiality as a commentator is called into question by such close relationships? If, on All-Ireland final day, Mickey Harte made the biggest mistake since Rhodri Giggs introduced his brother to his wife, would Brian go easy on him, because he’s a good sort of guy and doesn’t deserve any criticism?
Those days are gone. Jimmy Magee’s memory is finally fading and Micheál O Muircheartaigh has retired. Now, to succeed in the field of TV sports commentary, you have to offer cutting-edge and hard-hitting analysis, like, like … Marty Morrissey.
Come back, Brian. All is forgiven…
Escaping the Kingdom
Also today, as the Leaving Cert students settled into the second day of exams that will be about as worthwhile as a Giggsy “I do”, came the news that up to 100 players will leave clubs in Kerry, bound for new lives in Boston, Berlin or Bognor Regis.
If any county could possibly sustain such an exodus, it’s probably Kerry. If 100 players left Longford in the morning there’d be no-one left. Apart from Glenn Ryan, making a couple of dozen guinea-pigs step through rows and rows of tyres, leap through hoops and practise passing O’Neill’s footballs to a life-sized cut-out of Paul Barden.
Of the 20 clubs taking part in the Kerry Senior Football Championship, only Laune Rangers and Kilcummin will be unaffected.
Which makes us think the good lads of Laune and Kilcummin are either (a) exceptionally high achievers or (b) lazy.
Judging by results in the Kerry SFC over the last 15 years or so, we think we know the answer to that particular one.
