Much ado about Fitz’s cúpla focail

Slowly but surely, they will strip hurling of all its traditional glories; the overhead pull is as good as gone, the crisp ground whip is nearing obsolescence and now they are after the grand old practice of inviting your opposite number to put his medals on the table.

Poor old Davy Fitzgerald. Even on a day when he was at his most magnanimous in defeat and managed not to attribute Waterford’s debatable penalty to any multi-layered conspiracy against him, The Sunday Game still found a loose moment to highlight. A couple of entreaties for the sake of ‘eff’ and an insistence, to a mystery off-screen presence, that he had ‘two All-Irelands, you have eff-all.”

If Des Cahill and company had decided to focus on this harmless vignette for the pure comedy value, you’d have said it was fair game.

One for the Two Good, Two Bad slot favoured by MOTD2.

But Dessie gave it the solemn voice, even if his heart wasn’t fully in it. Our innocence was protected by a set of bleeps.

Liam Sheedy was invited to defend Davy’s rampage through our sensibilities.

Ah lads. Presumably The Sunday Game will run, in future, to four hours or more if every slice of colour commentary gets the same treatment.