The wait was over today as the Off The Ball five made their return with the Second Captains podcast, lasting for a for a whole hour and 16 minutes. The structure of the podcast was effectively a combination of Off The Ball's rugby and football show podcasts without Ken Early's much loved news round.
Ken quickly reminded us what we've been missing, coming out with this gem. 'With two hair transplanted coaches in the final 8 of the Champions League (Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte) , a major social change is heralded as it becomes apparent that baldness will in future become an affliction only of unsuccessful men'. Leaving Ken to question whether the hair transplant is a new form of doping.
The lads then mourned the death of Richie Sadlier's dog Frank Sadlier who became a cult hero on the show. Murph gave an entertaining eulogy followed by a moment of silence with ended with clapping and football style roar from Ken, 'Go on Frank'.
This enjoyable back and forth lasted around 7 minutes until the guests arrived and the podcast for the most part, got serious. A Simon Hick interview with Joe Schmidt followed by the double act of Gerry Thornley and Shane Horgan. We hope the excellent Horgan and Thornley become a regular part of the show rather than the rugby pundit rotation that the lads previously employed on On Off The Ball.
Two football show regulars, Sid Lowe and Richie Sadlier returned to talk about Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain bringing a Barcelona style approach to Manchester City and of course, Frank. Richie's introduction as usual brought back the levity with an anecdote about a Milwall player being questioned for not having sex with his wife due to his Catholic beliefs.
Second Captains is an entertaining listen and will be one of the few sports podcasts that you would definitely look forward to downloading every week. It was a bit surprising though, how little time the lads left for themselves or at least for a weekly news round with Ken. One of the strengths of Off The Ball was the unpredictability of the direction of the show with Ken's regular tangents ranging from Lenin to White Fang. Moments of spontaneity are harder to come by now on a weekly podcast with less time to talk and more topics to cover.
