‘Experts’ need to improve their offerings

There are a lot of lazy offerings made by pundits who are judging all games against the gold standard matches and do very little to educate the viewer, says Humphrey Kelleher.

Over the past couple of years the standard of GAA match analysis is deteriorating to the point where pundits are resorting to outrageous and provocative language in attempting to justify their points.

Every year we are subjected to the same type of post match tripe about the quality of the matches, inconsistencies of the referees and the definition of the rules.

We hear the same old clichéd tired responses and retorts from pundits that do nothing to enlighten the viewer as to what actually happened on the pitch.

The problem is that too often the pundits have become the centre of the story whereas the viewer or listener is mainly interested in what has happened on the pitch and not what goes on in the studio.

There are a lot of lazy offerings made by pundits who are judging all games against the gold standard matches and do very little to educate the viewer on what the reason for a certain score was or what caused a player to miss the target. Not all teams are up to this standard and this should be appreciated by the analyst.

Sometimes players, managers and referees are subjected to criticism that is not warranted.

A few years ago we had a pundit calling for a manager to resign following a loss by his team. Pundits should spend time in educating the public as to what they saw on the pitch and not what they would like to have seen.

No player goes out to play badly and should not be berated unfairly for their efforts especially when things go wrong for them. The players themselves are the first to know when a mistake is made and they or their families do not need to listen to a pundit condemning them for it.

I have no issue with pundits highlighting when they feel there is a lack of effort from a player or when a player continually engages in bad play. Very few players can play the perfect game every day and pundits should appreciate player’s efforts in their attempts to do so.

These are amateur players who try to play to a professional standard as best as they can. The pundits should take in to account the different standards and the capability of the players to perform on the day.

The usage of inflammatory language is unacceptable. A good pundit (we have one or two) should be an intelligent and original thinker who makes insightful points and backs them up with clear and fair analysis and examples.

They should draw sensibly on the knowledge and experiences they acquired during their own careers. Also they need to have enough integrity to change their minds when proven wrong and say what they believe to be true rather than what they believe the public want to hear.

I cannot understand why Colm Cooper was called a “two trick pony” by a former inter-county player and county manager – what did that comment have to do with another player’s performance on the day?

Considered evaluation should be given to highlighting various facets of the game such as tactics, skills, reading of the game, positioning and so on.

An excellent example that was overlooked in 2014 was the goal scored by Richie Hogan against Limerick in the All-Ireland SHC semi-final.

In the space of 15 seconds Hogan took a sideline puck, ran into space, took a very difficult high pass which he controlled with the hurley, withstood a shoulder, turned to his left, shortened his grip and buried the ball in the back of the net. He executed five of the skills of hurling in a very short period of time – none were discussed in detail by any of the pundits.

Another example was J J Delaney’s hook on Seamus Callinan which was one of the year’s highlights, however, this would not have happened if Callinan shortened his grip sufficiently (a la Austin Gleeson v Cork in 2014 and Shane O’Donnell v Cork in 2013) not to need a full back swing that gave Delaney the time to get the hook in. No comment was made by any pundit on this observation.

They should make thought-provoking comments about the style of play or explaining how the managers should or could change their game plans.

It was surprising to me Davy Fitzgerald did not substitute or move Jack Browne against Wexford when it was clear he was having a torrid time marking Liam óg McGovern in 2014 – there was no discussion as to why Browne was fouling McGovern.

I also feel pundits should evaluate their own performances of match day analysis and see whether they felt they were up to the mark.

Let’s hope for a better 2015 where I would like to see a somewhat improved offering from our “experts”.

* Waterford native Humphrey Kelleher managed the Dublin hurlers from 2004 to ‘05. He is currently chairman of the GAA’s National Poc Fada Committee and last year guided Castleknock to their first Dublin intermediate title.

He co-authored the Dublin hurling blueprint in 2001 and also wrote the book “GAA Family Silver — The People and Stories Behind 101 Cups and Trophies“.