The greatest quote about hurling comes from Anthony Daly.
Sure look, hurling. A thousand mad things and then someone comes out on top.
The weekend's staging of the most storied clash in hurling brought with it a relatively new competition: RTE vs Sky Sports, and it felt like two different people arguing Daly's point. RTE treated hurling as a kind of mystical embodiment of human ferocity and integrity that Ireland hit upon before the rest of the world. Sky took the counter-point: seeing the game as an object of interrogation and analysis.
Here are the opposing squads. For RTE: Michael Lyster as host; Liam Sheedy, Ger 'brill-int' Loughnane and Henry Shefflin as analysts; Brendan Cummins and Eddie Brennan on the touch-line pre-game; Donal Og Grady as sideline analyst; Ger Canning and Michael Duignan as commentators.
For Sky: Rachel Wyse as anchor; JJ Delaney, Ollie Canning as pundits; Brian Carney and Jamesie O'Connor as analysts; Mike Finnerty and Nicky English on mic.
Sky essentially played the game, rather than the occasion.
RTE's coverage began 25 minutes earlier than Sky's, kicking off with one of their trademark "stirring montages", swooning in esteem for the "first Sunday of September".
RTE spent much of the game waxing lyrical of how great an occasion this is, speaking in hushed and reverential tones of the magic of the 'first weekend in September'. In reality, the staging of the hurling final in September is anachronistic: there is no real need for the hurling championship to be as long as it is, other than upholding tradition, which the GAA do better than anyone. (Attempts at Congress this year to move the final to August failed to pass).
They spoke with the cautious pride of Arthurian Kings entrusted with the Holy Grail: they were the lucky ones given the chair for the most ethereal of Irish occasions, and they were going to respect it. This was not the All-Ireland hurling final, this was the First Sunday of September, an ancient day in the Irish calendar handed down by the Celts, like Samhain or that funny name they had for France.
On Sky, they laboured less on the occasion and launched immediately into a discussion on where the game would be won and lost, discussing the game as they would anything else. Their pre-game montage was underwhelming, and even featured an appearance by RTE Seanachai Marty Morrissey:
Everything on Sky seemed well-rehearsed, with panelists rarely speaking over each other. Things were much different on RTE, with the extra 25 minutes on RTE seemingly a necessary annexation of the schedule to allow the panel laugh dutifully at various jokes that didn't really have an ending, merely focussing on the fact that Liam Sheedy was from Tipp, Henry Shefflin was from Kilkenny and that Loughnane was caught in the middle of ever-growing levels of b****r.
Sky's rehearsals work extremely well with Jamesie O'Connor and Brian Carney at the "SkyPad", a touch-screen gadget which allowed O'Connor to break down the game brilliantly, with Carney an excellent foil. Even if the British man whose reaction to hurling may have been featured on this website in the past didn't have a clue what was going on, he couldn't but be impressed by the sheer number of arrows and shapes Jamesie could draw:
RTE did a couple of slots of analysis: whereas Jamesie dissected the threat posed by Callanan, RTE gave less detail on the threat of Tipp's inside forward line, and they also did a slot called "Kings of Intensity", showing Kilkenny hunting in packs. (In the past week, intensity has become a synonym for vagueness).
Ahead of kick-off, Loughnane proclaimed that it took "great men to perform on a day like this". The Great Man theory of history was espoused in the 1840s by Thomas Carlyle, claiming that history could be explained by great men acting in an equally great fashion, regardless of the social constraints around them. The 'Cody Cam' - the camera gazing upwards at Cody as he strode out onto the field, painting him as a titan of Irish life - merely added to this. This was RTE's coverage in a nutshell.
Sky's felt like the Herbert Spencer-led reaction against the Great Man theory: that men only prevail in social conditions that suit them, hence Sky's preponderance on the tactics and space around the players. It is like contrasting the opposing management approaches taken by Bill Shankly and Rafa Benitez at Liverpool: one the man-motivator, the other the cold, distant tactician.
RTE's coverage felt more in line with the spirit of the final. For example, at half-time, while Sky delivered lines like 'Kilkenny will be happy to be only trailing by two points', the RTE panel felt like three men at a bar, warmly meditating on a series of shared and understood truths, before one would eventually murmur with a knowing air 'sure look, Kilkenny are only trailing by two'.
In the end, Kilkenny trailed by nine. Loughnane exulted afterward that the victory for Tipp would lead to the end of hurling's sweepers and blanket defences - to perverse tactics - when in reality, the havoc wreaked by Bubbles and Callanan will probably stiffen coaching resolves to flood defences next year. Little was said about Cody's failure to stop them. But in many ways, the moments after such an extraordinary Tipp performance was not the time.
For RTE, this was not the time for cold, hard analysis. This was the time to rejoice in a great game played by great men.
As hard as Sky may try, sometimes, a thousand mad things are better be experienced than understood.
That Thousand-Yard Stare
One arena in which Sky did win was their ability to look at the camera, something Jamesie O' Connor has presumably picked up from colleague Butch Harmon.
Donal O' Grady could do with some of the Harmon treatment.
Gripe of the Week
Ryan Tubridy introducing the O'Donovan brothers as "international media superstars" on the Late Late Show. Olympic silver medalists?
Best Dressed Pundit of the Week
Brendan Cummins can count himself unfortunate not to be used on commentary by RTE final - he's been a revelation this year - but was consoled by the fact he could display his magnificent elbow patches on the touchline.
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