Why we should ignore pundits like Joe Brolly
For five straight years Kieran McGeeney has guided Kildare to the All-Ireland series when in the seven seasons before him Kildare hadn’t even made it even once, yet a line of commentators label his team “underachievers” and ask where’s the silverware.
Maybe Kildare are only the fifth or sixth best team in the country, but what’s the shame in that? It seems to be lost on a lot of GAA pundits and writers sceptical of Kildare that they themselves aren’t among the top five nationally in their own profession either.
We call it “Ah but” syndrome. Any achievement a team pulls off can be dismissed by an “Ah but” or a “But sure”. Usually it’s in relation to their calibre or list of defeated opponents. “But sure they’ve beaten nobody.” Go through this year’s All-Ireland quarter-finalists and it could be levelled at nearly all of them, except Cork, but sure that was only in the Munster championship.
There’s one thing being a critic and another being a cynic. And The Sunday Game resident panellists are the worst offenders of belittling people without whom they wouldn’t have anyone to get paid to commentate about.
Whereas their hurling counterparts Liam Sheedy and Cyril Farrell can observe and enjoy a match between two non-contenders like Wexford and Offaly on its own merits, the triumvirate of Brolly, Spillane and O’Rourke spent the early summer belittling or berating the honest efforts of Division Three teams like Wexford, Longford and Tipperary.
O’Rourke, Brolly and Spillane each in their own right still have a lot to offer GAA punditry but you can’t keep having two or more of them on at once without either a younger, more informed panellist (Dara Ó Cinnéide and Anthony Tohill are sorely missed) or a stronger, more informed anchor.
Last Sunday night was a nadir. While Michael Lyster projected his scepticism of Joe Brolly’s skewed and selective argument on the merits of Kerry, we’d prefer if it had been in the way of facts rather than rolling his eyes.
Brolly’s attack on Kerry and Colm Cooper was the ultimate in “Ah but” punditry. He’s gone close before. All last summer he dismissed every Dublin team of the last 25 years as “chokers”. His reservations of Cork are well documented. But the way he downplayed the six All-Irelands Kerry have won over the last 15 years was pathetic.
According to Joe, “on all occasions — this is just a simple fact of life — whenever a team stands and stares them in the face for 70 minutes, Kerry have looked down… I have yet to see this Kerry team win in the face of adversity.”
Yes, you have, Joe, if you care to remember. Twice against Armagh in 2000 and again when the counties met in the 2006 All-Ireland quarter-final — call it that year’s final if you want, since you’re so dismissive of Mayo. How can you forget all three days when your beloved Crossmaglen were well represented?
You can’t just judiciously pick last year’s All-Ireland final against Dublin and then forget about Kerry’s victory over the same county in a 2007 All Ireland semi-final that was almost as epic as Derry’s 1993 semi-final win over the Dubs, the game which forged much of your own reputation as a player.
They “faced adversity” against Galway in 2000 and 2008 and triumphed. And when they met proper Cork teams in 2008 and 2009 and in Munster in 2010 and 2011, Kerry, thanks in no small part to Cooper, carved out a way.
Joe can’t keep dismissing Kerry’s 2004 triumph either on the basis that they only beat Mayo; didn’t that the same Mayo beat the mighty Tyrone?
Everyone has “choked’’, Joe. Tyrone in 2004 and 2007 when Mayo and Meath put it up to them. Peter “The Great” got himself suspended in 1997 and sent off in 2001. Mikey Sheehy couldn’t kick a free in Killarney in 1987 a week after conjuring up that last-minute goal down by the Lee.
Maybe it was Joe, in trying to break into TV, who behind the scenes put together that famous “Pele was crap” sequence for Baddiel and Skinner on Fantasy Football.
Maybe Kerry might lose to Donegal next weekend. If they do, it’ll be just like when Tyrone met a hungrier, younger team in Cork in 2009, not because they lacked any bottle.
Everyone loses now and again, even Kerry.
Champions make their setbacks temporary and their victories permanent. Critics prefer to make their victories temporary and their setbacks permanent.
The trick for champions is to ignore the latter.
Maybe we all should until the likes of Joe wise up.
