Well Done The Sunday Game, the Most Important Program in Ireland

Des Cahill’s Sunday Game goes from strength to strength. Cahill’s tenure in the most important job in Irish television got off to a wonderful start last year when his effortlessly amiable manner put GAA men at ease, as opposed to the Defcon 1 necessary for a chat with Cahill’s immediate predecessor, Pat Spillane.

The standard of analysis on The Sunday Game is so much better than it was too. Rather than ape what’s emerging as the RTÉ Sport house style of forming panels along the Contrarian/Someone with a clue model, Cahill allows his panelists to share what they know from lifetimes in the game. Not all the panelists are great of course, but still. It’s a start.

Last night Cahill rose to another challenge, and he deserves credit for it. Sligo v Leitrim was never likely to be a feature game when Kerry, Cork and Kildare are all playing. The fact that people expect their TV sports presented in a certain way makes it hard on Irish broadcasters too, because the GAA, to its glory, is not a professional sport.

It exists in a different sort of reality and the Irish media hasn’t really come to grips with finding the correct voice for that, a voice that finds the balance between the journalist’s duty to report facts, and common decency’s duty not to hammer a guy who did his best and has to go to work in the morning. It’s very hard to strike a balance between the marquee needs of television and the pride of village needs of the ordinary GAA person.

But last night The Sunday Game came up trumps. They can’t have been expecting the story of the day to happen in Markiewicz Park on Sunday morning but it did and The Sunday Game were able to change their schedules to accommodate it.

Again, it doesn’t seem like much, featuring Leitrim’s triumphant win over Sligo first in the show rather than down the order, but it was something that was beyond the Sunday Game’s newsroom colleagues at six and at nine o’clock.

Is this because RTÉ have upped their game in the light of Newstalk’s challenge on the radio? It’s possible, but it doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that there is a rising standard in the way the games are covered. Each can make the other better by forcing excellence, instead of settling for the mediocrity that comes from monopoly.

Your correspondent was contacted on Twitter during the weekend over some robust criticism of a GAA piece on The Journal on Friday night, since taken down. My friend told me, in not so many words, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and, as such, perhaps I shouldn’t have gone so medieval in my remarks.

And I take that on board. Few things are as hateful as bullies. But it’s also important to have standards and if we don’t excoriate the mediocre we can never identify the good. So hail, then, The Sunday Game, for not going through the motions and giving Leitrim their due.

GAA isn’t like other sports. There is nothing more local than the GAA and it’s from this local rivalry that the organisation derives its great strength. The GAA doesn’t exist in the same world of glamour as English soccer or European rugby. But for the people of Roscommon and Letrim in the joyous three weeks of anticipation ahead of them, it’s Heaven descended unto the Earth.

The GAA means nothing in the world of Eurovision or X-Factor or Glenda and Rosanna. It exists somewhere else; in shops where people get messages, marts where farmers look and don’t buy, bars that sell pints of special and locals keep money for funeral pints in jars. It’s outside church gates and chip shops and petrol stations and all the places where people meet to talk and ask well; how do you think they’ll do on Sunday? It’s a magical place, really. I think they call it “Ireland.”

Addressing Inequality in the Gaelic Football Championship

An Spailpín Fánach can exclusively reveal that the remarkable events of all the Provincial Champions losing in the quarter-finals resulted in an extraordinary meeting of a select comma-tee deep underground in Croke Park on Sunday night.

The comma-tee was formed when a man went into fits in the premium level after Dublin beat Tyrone, wondering what would happen if a team refused to accept the Sam McGuire Cup on the basis they hadn’t been beaten at all during the year and wanted to know why they were being singled out and discriminated against.

The Association realised that the Championship could end up like search for the final digit of π at that rate of going. And who needs that, with the nights drawing in and no sign of a rise in the price of houses?

Hence the comma-tee. The minutes of the meeting are as follows.

1. This comma-tee accepts that the root cause of discrimination in the GAA is not the provincial system, but the county system itself. Counties have unequal populations, and often suffer further due to an unfortunate ratio of boys to childs in certain counties.

2. The comma-tee has decided, therefore, that all counties are to be done away with summarily. All players in clubs on the island of Ireland, and her wild geese in London and New York, are to listed, collated and randomly assigned to thirty-two newly created teams of equal size.

3. The teams will be named after sponsors rather than counties in order to level the playing field. This to further promote equality, and has nothing to do with money. At all. We hate the stuff. Root of all evil. (NOTE: Any smartarse in a newspaper who writes any wry/world-weary/why-oh-why/Grab-All-Association thousand word think piece in response to this initiative is to be banned from all games for five bloody years, and that counts double for the International Rules pinting sessions).

4. The new teams then play in a Champions League style round robin rotisserie league, after which four semi-finalists are draw out of a hat because nobody understands what the hell any of that other stuff is.

5. Before each semi-final, each team manager will be shown a picture of John Mullane, a hurl and a kitten. He will be then be told if it’s there’s one peep, sigh or sideways glance out of him about the new system, it’s goodbye kitty. Not even one of those Nordie bollixes would dare. Everybody loves kitties. And is a little frightened of John Mullane.

6. The comma-tee recognises that, even though the counties will have been replaced by Brennan’s Breaded Buffaloes, Galtee Mountain Bucks, Bailey’s Irish Scream, and so on, inequality will still exist on the field of play. Even though the players are randomly selected, the luck of the draw will still mean that some players will better than others are catching footballs, kicking footballs and kicking caught footballs over the bar.

7. The comma-tee therefore recommends that the old determination of the result of a game by adding up “goals” and “points” scored will no longer apply. Instead, at the end of seventy minutes, where graphs of players' work-rates are displayed on the big boards as the players run aimlessly around Croke Park, stopping only to do jumping jacks and push-ups, some scrawny buck with glasses and a white coat will along with a computer to announce the winner.

8. The formula for calculating the winner will be derived by a complex algorithm drawn up by a mathematician so smart he lives in a cave, does sums with chalk held in his toes, and smells like a ferret that’s been fried in chip fat. The comma-tee accepts the weirder you are, the better you are at sums as a fundamental natural law.

9. The comma-tee will appoint a sub-comma-tee to see if we can use an umpire’s white coat for the scrawny buck, and use the money saved for an iPad instead of a regular computer. Mental looking yokes, the iPads.

10. The comma-tee heartily endorses the attitude of the Mayo County Board in having no damned “fan” telling them what they can or can’t do. Any “fans” attempting to so question the comma-tee's recommendations, either through Liveline, Des Cahill or Twitter, will be rounded up and shot.

11. The comma-tee then adjourned to the Auld Triangle at the corner of Dorset and Gardiner for drinks. And are probably there yet.

Des Cahill, and the Most Important Job on Television

The jury is in. Des Cahill is doing a superb job as host of The Sunday Game.

There were concerns in some quarters – in this quarter, actually – that Des was too much of a party man to host the most important sports show in Ireland. The Sunday Game is the true Dáil Éireann, the meeting of the Gael where issues of great national import are discussed. You can’t – or at least, you shouldn’t – have any eejit in the chair and the concern was that Cahill’s tremendous need to be liked would cloud his journalistic judgement.

Des used to get very uncomfortable on Sportscall when people called in to question refereeing decisions – how would he handle the white heat of the Sunday Game sofas?

As it turns out Des handles the challenges like Jack O’Connor handles his footballers – both are men fully in control of their kingdoms. Now in mid-season form in his second season, Des Cahill’s particular gifts are clear, and the Sunday Game is much better as a result.

Cahill’s first gift is his ability to put people at ease. Cahill’s immediate predecessor on the Sunday night show, Pat Spillane, not only had no interest in putting people at their ease, Pateen rather revelled in making his guests suffer. If people stood up to him and gave as good as they got, it made for great TV. But nobody ever did.

A Sunday Game panellist is not a media creature. He is more familiar with Anton O’Toole than Anton Savage, and for this we should all thank the good God. But it does mean that the panellists are often uncomfortable in the studio, meaning that they clam up and say nothing. And that’s no good.

Cahill gift is to coax the panel’s real opinions out of them. He establishes a bond of trust with them that makes them visibly more relaxed, making them forgot they’re on TV in the first place, and allowing them to express the same opinions they would to the buck standing next to them at a game. It looks easy, but it’s not. It’s a gift as much as it’s a skill, and Cahill has it.

Cahill’s second gift, his remarkable empathy, is the reason that the panellists so warm to him. Cahill is a man who is actually interested in what they have to say, even to the extent of getting lost himself in the conversation.

Some presenters will look at the clipboard to see what’s next to the detriment of the conversation. A panellist could remark as an aside that a certain county has introduced the revolutionary idea of conjuring the Hornèd One on Walpurgis night to see if the Dark Lord can play on the edge of the square for seventy minutes on Sunday as they’re wild stuck.

This won’t knock a stir out of Clipboard Man, who will only make a hamfisted link to the Lory Meagher Cup item that’s next on The List. By contrast, Des will happily clear the decks to discuss the prospect of the smell of sulphur outweighing that of Deep Heat in coming years, and let Lory paddle his own canoe for a while.

This attention to detail is the pearl beyond price for this sort of show, because Des Cahill wants to discuss what everybody is discussing on Sunday night, rather than being in thrall to a running order set in stone.

An Spailpín suspects that Des is a little starstruck after all these years, which is wonderful. One problem with working in TV is that people can think they’re the star. Whereas last Sunday night Cahill was clearly awestruck in having Diarmuid Ó Súilleabháin in the studio, and thrilled to broadcast the Rock’s famous point against Limerick again.

It was the same when Cahill hosted that tribute to the Munster Championship last year. It was hard not to have one’s back up slightly at one Championship being elevated above all the rest, but Cahill was so drawn by the stars in the room that it was impossible not be drawn in just as much. Cork legend Kevin Hennessy was a particular star that night, and An Spailpín hopes he’s still doing well.

Gaelic Games are amateur sports played in a very small country where everybody knows everybody else. That makes them extremely difficult to report on, because you can’t pick on amateur players who do not pull down the sort of money Ronaldo et al do, but you can’t not analyse the games either.

The Sunday Game doesn’t always get it right. An Spailpín thought the Leitrim full-back could have done without getting patronised by Pat Spillane a few weeks ago, for instance – but Des Cahill’s enchantment with the games reflects the enchantment of the Gael, and we rest easy that the true Dáil is at last in full session. Besides; Dara Ó Cinnéide still has time on his side.

What Will Des Cahill's Sunday Game Be Like?

Yesterday evening’s announcement of Des Cahill as the new presenter of the Sunday Game is something of a disappointment. It’s not as shattering a disappointment as watching your Bank of Ireland shares go down the Swanee River, but there is a certain weight on the heart.

It’s hard not to worry that the evening Sunday Game, the single most important TV program to the GAA fan, will end up being the Road to Croker II, a lot of soft old blather. Dara Ó Cinnéide or Setanta's Daire O'Brien would have been An Spailpín’s choice as Sunday Game presenter, but Cahill is popular in RTÉ, and popular counts.

There is an understanding abroad that Des Cahill is a GAA man, especially after his rescuing of the Late Late Show GAA special. An Spailpín couldn’t really say as I didn’t see the show, and would maintain that anyone who sat down to watch that show in the first place was naïve in the extreme, as it could only ever have been terrible.

Marty Whelan won Celebrity Bainisteoir I believe – should Marty host the Sunday Game? Celebrity Bainisteoir and the Late Late Show are mass appeal entertainment programs. They have nothing to do with sports journalism, which is where discussion of the Sunday Game should begin and end.

It would take a level of imagination that is not common in the Irish media to even attempt the change of perspective a real GAA show would require rather than the lazy platitudes we usually get. Gaelic games are not like other sports. It needs to be discussed in a different language.

There seems to be an opinion abroad that Cahill will “ask the hard questions.” People don’t always think through what they mean by that. The GAA is an amateur organisation with amateur players, who all have to go back to work on Monday. Trial by media and slow-motion replays do not suit the games or the Irish psyche.

Last year’s Galvin affair, which you would think cut and dried, was anything but. This is the problem the Sunday Game will always face. Is the appointment of Des Cahill an attempt to address that, or is it just RTÉ wheeling out their Doctor Doolittle?

Has GAA journalism has existed for over a hundred years without ever evolving its own voice? Not at all. Mick Dunne and Jim Carney were GAA men to the fingertips, but their particular style is seen as terribly passé in Donnybrook right now. Whereas Des is such a teddy bear, and even though he’s true blue Dubbalin man he worked in the country, you know. As far the Donnybrook panjandrums are concerned, Cahill is like the old lady in Airplane: “oh stewardess – I speak jive.”

Des Cahill can speak to the country bumpkins, and that gives him kudos in Donnybrook for this post. What also gives him kudos is that he has the gift of serving two masters – while his public persona is that of the man on the street, anyone paying attention to the way he chaired Sportscall will have noted that Des always took the side of authority. Telling Des about overcrowding in Tuam or Thurles was always likely to hear a recitation of the party line.

Presenting the Sunday Game will not be an easy job. Des Cahill has an extreme disadvantage in that his most obvious point of comparison is the RTÉ soccer panel, who are tremendous. But is not a fair comparison – soccer as commentated on Johnny Giles is a professional game played by millionaires. GAA men drive forklifts for Beamish and Crawford and farm fields of rushes. You cannot speak about GAA players who are playing for love in the same language you use to speak about divers, cheats, cowards and spivs who are pulling down hundreds of thousands of pounds per week.

There’s no law that says you have to hammer someone to be a legitimate journalist. And this is especially the case when you’re commentating on amateur players playing an amateur game.

Des Cahill will have to decide whom he would like to serve as presenter of the Sunday Game. Shall he serve the establishment, RTÉ, the players, his own comfort zone, or any combination of the above?

The evening Sunday Game is more important that the live afternoon show because GAA people are at matches during the live show. But they need – need – the half-nine show for analysis of their own game and the national state of things. And your deeply concerned correspondent often wonders if RTÉ actually understands this.

The single most important Sunday Game of the year is the one of the night of the All-Ireland finals. RTÉ seem utterly oblivious to this fact, and are ruining it currently by featuring reviews of the year, teams of the year, live links from the winning teams’ hotels and a lot of people pig drunk in different boozers in the winning counties. Who cares? This is Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh stuff – it has nothing to do with sport.

Win or lose, the essential thing for the GAA fan coming back from the All-Ireland is to see the Sunday Game, meaning game footage and analysis. It’s essential. To see just how essential we can now take a trip through time and space, to the great town of Ballivor, Co Meath, on the night of the 28th of September, 1997.

If we visit one of the pubs therein, we will behold some sorrowful Mayomen in the green and red finery watching the Muiris Mac Gearailt All-Ireland on the Sunday Game to the amusement and pity of the locals. That was a long night twelve years ago, but to drive on and miss the Sunday Game would have been like ordering a pint and not finishing it. It. Just. Isn't. Done.

An Spailpín wishes Des Cahill all the best in his new role. His is a great responsibility and we need him to do well. Go n-éirí leis.





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