Mimic Joe Brolly explains bad Tipperary impression

Denying again he ever laughed at the Tipperary footballers, Joe Brolly insisted what was perceived as disrespect for the Premier players was actually amusement at his own impersonation - of colleague Colm O’Rourke.

Brolly and O’Rourke had copped flak following RTÉ’s Munster final coverage, when they were shown laughing at half-time in the game, with Kerry winning comfortably.

In the lead-up to yesterday’s game, Tipperary’s Alan Moloney said the footage had “boiled my blood” and accused the RTE pair of showing “total disrespect towards the players and football people in Tipperary”.

But Brolly insisted yesterday there was no joke at Tipperary’s expense and explained what had caused the on-screen amusement.

Speaking to Sunday Game presenter Michael Lyster, Brolly said: “We have a code of omerta we’ve always observed here (on this programme). But myself and Colm have discussed this and we’ll break it on this one occasion.

“What actually happened…it’s not in the Brolly nature to snitch, but I’m going to snitch….

“I did an impersonation of Colm, an excellent impersonation. Off camera. And predicted what he was going to say.

“We came on live, and you Michael turned what I said in the impression into the question, and put it to Colm and so the giddiness continued.

“That’s exactly what happened.”

There was no “what do you think of that, Joe Brolly” moment from Tipp goal hero Conor Sweeney after the game. But he did tell RTE Sport Liam Kearns side were determined not to relinquish a winning position again, having led leads slip against both Cork and Derry.

“It’s the stuff of dreams, but we’ve been dreaming all year and we knew the belief in the lads, and in the squad, and thankfully we showed it today.

“Galway were always going to have their purple patch and I think that was the only time they really threatened. We knew if we could just keep it to that one goal we’d be in with a shout.

“We’ve known from the past that we’ve been in that position and taken the foot off the pedal but today we didn’t.

“We drove on and we should have got more scores in the end, that’s something to work on for the next day. I think we went 10 or 15 minutes without a score and that won’t be good enough the next day.”

And Tipp manager Liam Kearns expressed his pride in the team.

“It’s fantastic. I’m just so delighted for the lads. They played serious football out there and there can be nobody who can have any quibble with the result.

“Hopefully, now they’ll get the respect they deserve, because we don’t feel we’ve got it so far. This is a serious football team with serious players.

“They were all excellent, top class. We just had a really good day. Everybody performed, and when you get that you get results like this.”

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