McConville keeps faith in Cross

IT’S not well known outside Ulster but Oisín McConville is gaining a growing reputation as a pundit who calls games right. Writing a column in a Belfast-based Sunday newspaper, his record of picking winners is impressive.

He’s not afraid to discount his own Armagh either. In last year’s Ulster SFC opener, he correctly tipped Monaghan to beat the then Division 2 champions. As a recovering gambling addict, it might be seen as a perilous exercise. Not for McConville. There was a time when teams’ odds meant everything to him. Not anymore.

Sailing too close to the wind? Not at all. “I’ve never thought of it like that,” he says. “It would never have crossed my mind that it could be seen as being too close to gambling. Let me put it to you this way: I watch games and call games now for the right reasons. Before I wouldn’t have. Now it’s purely for what I know about a team and what sources from counties would tell me about how teams are going. I’m doing it for the right reasons, a love of the game.”