Is RTE's football analysis stale and in need of a shake up?

Yes, says Larry Ryan. No, says Liam Mackey

Yes, says Larry Ryan - New blood is needed as former invincibles are showing their age

JUST as RTÉ current affairs chiefs stepped aside over inaccuracies, assumptions and disregard for facts on Wednesday evening, it was unfortunate the station’s football department was clutching the same vices as badges of honour.

Thankfully, the stakes were insignificant compared to the Ahascragh debacle, but the shabby coverage of Arsenal’s Champions League tie with Borussia Dortmund made for another embarrassing night for the broadcaster. The rot set in when commentator Stephen Alkin continually referred to “Wilshere” in the Arsenal midfield, several months before the injured Englishman is expected to play again.

From there, no fact was too trivial to get right. Lazarus Wilshere was 18, Per Mertesacker cost €6m, Robin van Persie’s contract expires this summer, Fabregas left at the end of his contract, Laurent Koscielny was at fault for Dortmund’s goal 15 minutes after he was substituted.

Or was that, as Billo suggested, Liverpool reject Konchesky? Yes, Konchesky, agreed Gilesy.

None of it matters much, only chips away at credibility. And when the topic du jour is a tired, reheated debate about Arsene Wenger not spending enough money, you’d at least like to rely on the discussed figures. One exchange near the end summed up this night’s work.

Billo: “Do you see any improvement in Walcott? Gilesy: “No... he’s better than he was.”

If only we could say the same of the panel. For many years, its speciality has been a three-act pantomime, albeit a more entertaining pantomime than any other.

One act fingers work-shy scapegoats who refuse to track back or demand possession of the ball. Another is devoted to hurling invective (Eamo) at the world’s top footballers and comparing them unfavourably (Gilesy) to Pele, Maradona and Bobby Charlton as well as assorted horse training luminaries (Eamo).

Thirdly, on Champions League nights, there is the important business of contrasting one of the sides featured with the “real teams” — which, as far as we can tell, are early 90s Milan, “the Leeds team John played in” and the “Liverpool team Ronnie played in”.

It’s all great gas up to a point. And when Manchester United are playing — as is invariably the case on RTÉ — the lads have just about enough info to muddle through.

But this week, without Liam Brady at hand to correct the more glaring gaffes, they were, to use Eamo’s favourite disparagement, spoofing. And when the subject veers beyond English clubs, even Brady isn’t much use to the other two.

In fairness to Gilesy, he is reluctant to chance his arm and sticks to what he knows but Dunphy routinely recites half-truths and inaccuracies.

A few weeks back, he dismissed Edin Dzeko as “a donkey” who Manchester City “bought from Dortmund”. Nobody murmured in protest, which is all a bit unprofessional, really.

All the more so when O’Herlihy, a fine journalist with the instinct to magic a story out of very little, believes the panel provide a public service.

In an interview with The Irish Times last year, he explained how RTÉ conducted a survey around the time of the 1990 World Cup which indicated only 32% of the audience understood football. Accordingly, he, Giles and Dunphy set about teaching us. Now, if Billo read out all the texts and tweets the show has begun to solicit, he might find the education is coming the other way.

None of which is to disparage Gilesy’s ability to read a match. He also remains an authoritative judge of a player. Dunphy, too, is without rival when it comes to putting on a show. His “where did you manage?/I managed to stay alive for 63 years, baby” spat with Souness is the kind of box office moment people stay tuned for.

But it’s high time to switch things up a gear. Get in a genuine European football expert to help. A Marcotti or a Hunter could join the dots between the broad strokes. Youngsters nowadays will give you chapter and verse on false nines and inverted wingers. They don’t need their hands held through patient explanations of the evils inherit in zonal marking at corners. Nor should they be regularly told “there are no great players out there, Bill”. It’s lazy, complacent stuff and everybody involved has more in them.

No, says Liam Mackey - Slapstick punditry yes, but at least it’s keeping us entertained

I NOTE that, this week, the State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy dismissed the idea of spontaneous human combustion as “a myth”. With all due respect to the good Prof, I can only assume then that she has never seen Eamon Dunphy analyse Ronaldo.

I say “analyse” but, of course, that’s a mere doffing of the cap to those bland rites and rituals which generally pass for football punditry. The more appropriate word, in this context, is probably “incinerate”, at the end of which process all that’s left of Ronaldo’s reputation is a small heap of ashes while puffs of smoke continue to issue from the Dunph’s ears. On a night like this, you could warm your hands with the ferocious heat coming off the box.

No matter that Ronaldo scores goals to beat the band. Dunphy has never been one to allow trifling facts to get in the way of his outrage. When Ronaldo fails to track back, or stands, pouting, with his hands on his hips after a pass has gone astray, Dunphy is onto him straight away, with John Giles not too far behind.

This sort of stuff infuriates people who reckon the boys have their pet hates and are inclined to set higher standards for some than for others. But while it’s true that they have only ever grudgingly given Ronaldo any credit for his considerable contribution to, first Manchester United and, now, Real Madrid, that’s not to say they are completely wrong about him either. And, as a cast iron argument-clincher, they’ll be only too happy to cite the handy, if rather exceptional, example of Lionel Messi to prove that, yes, you can be both a sleeves-rolled-up shift-worker and an authentic genius at once.

So there’s invariably more than a little method to even the wildest outbursts of Montrose madness. The idea that Giles and Dunphy have passed their sell-by date is usually accompanied by complaints about occasional mispronunciation of names, misidentification of players and a general suspicion that, from time to time, they’re winging it. But Giles, in particular, is operating on a different level. He might not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the stats and facts of modern football but give him a half an hour’s exposure to any team or player and he’ll tell you what you really need to know.

Dunphy presents himself as some vaguely heroic figure, telling it like it is, you can feel like throwing your shoe through the television screen. But, next thing, he floors you with some killer observation or riposte. There was his pithy summation of an insufferable post-match interview between Garth Crooks and Sven Goran Eriksson during World Cup 2006: “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen two men make love on the BBC.”

Dunphy might lamely protest otherwise, but as an entertainer, he’s pure box office.

If Liam Brady wasn’t the figure of substance then, caught between Giles and Dunphy, he could easily end up like the bass player in Spinal Tap who happily defined himself as the “lukewarm water” between the “ice” and “fire” of the band’s two songwriters.

In fact, Brady is generally spot-on in his analysis, even when he’s engaged in the potentially tricky business of talking about the Irish team and management. At one point during the Euro qualifying campaign, when the wolves were gathering at Trap’s door, Brady said: “It’s not just the Trapattoni era. It’s Irish football. We haven’t the players who are really comfortable on the ball at the back to build up from the back; we haven’t got the central midfield players who would spray the ball around, and Trap has gone for this system, trusting people to do a hard-working job, to play with determination, to not do anything silly. It’s been getting us results.”

Hard to think of a fairer, more accurate summation of where we are at than that, surely? But, of course, that didn’t stop Giles complaining about “caveman” football or the Dunph going off on another of his incandescent riffs about truth, beauty and Aidan O’Brien.

Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way. And if any of you panel-beaters still insist on thinking otherwise, then please flash forward to next summer and let me know how it feels to be enjoying the Euro finals in the company of Alan Shearer.