Saturday night felt like the eliding of two distinct ages. It was finally time for Ray D'Arcy's Saturday Night RTE One viewers to confront the new reality: that there exists a new generation of Irish people who have the audacity of strutting about flaunting cash, rather than do the decent, humble thing and make your money through pyramid schemes and banking loopholes at the expense of the taxpayer.
This was the revolution belatedly televised to Official Ireland: Conor McGregor won RTE's Sportsperson of the Year award for 2016, an award that briefly threatened to tear the Irish media apart last week. It was decided by public vote, and as a result necessitated the drawing up of a shortlist. In the shadow cast by those left out reeled the indignant newspaper columnists.
Paul Kimmage served up the strongest scorn, describing the shortlist as the "Oscar of joke lists", which he said comes as no surprise from RTE, as "they don't have a clue out there".
He cited Vincent Hogan's column that McGregor would win as it is a public vote, given his absurdly partisan supporter base. As anyone who has written an article critical of McGregor and/or the UFC will know: there ain't a lobby group quite like Big MMA.
McGregor did win, and we bore witness to the supreme irony of a man whose sport is not recognised by Sport Ireland winning a sports award in association with Sport Ireland. In his interview with Clare McNamara, McGregor bragged about waking up beneath duck feathers, which this column had not realised was something to aspire to.
Given that those watching his interview are more used to watching Ray D'Arcy guffawing at somebody he met in the RTE canteen that week saying something inoffensive, the jarring brashness McGregorism was likely to come as a shock. And to many, it did: the reaction was divided, with many viewers online turning their noses up at McGregor's win.
Incongruous with the headline winner was RTE's understated approach to the entire night.
Stephen Kenny was the Manager of the Year and Brave Ireland came up short in the Team of the Year battle: losing out to the O'Donovan brothers, who Darragh Maloney seemed absolutely thrilled to meet. Overall, the RTE production was understated and excellent: the tribute to Anthony Foley as he was posthumously inducted to the Hall of Fame was perfect, and there were nice touches in interviewing Rob Heffernan and Olive Loughnane, both of whom were belatedly awarded medals in 2016.
There was one disappointing omission. Little tribute was paid to Robbie Keane, Ireland's record goalscorer who finally called it a day earlier this year. The end of the road for a magnificent Irish servant, but above all, one of the few world-class players we have produced domestically, deserved more recognition. While many will sneer at McGregor's loudmouth, he at least has made himself unignorable. Robbie's goals should have achieved that for him, but evidently not.
A minor gripe. Overall, RTE's celebration felt more natural than the BBC's, which took place the following night.
O'Neills Martin and Michael were not present in Montrose to be interviewed following their coaching nominations, but they did make it to Birmingham for the Beeb's bombast.
Hosted by Gary Lineker, Clare Balding and Gabby Logan, the Beeb spared no expense in salivating over Team GB's economics achievements, while also honouring England's insipid Euro 2016 with a Viking Thunder Clap encompassing the whole arena.
It had to be done!
Remember #Euro2016? Then you'll remember this! #SPOTY https://t.co/bAAv1IhLDC— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 18, 2016
The Beeb were equally affected by nominees for the main award not showing up to the event: Chris Coleman was interviewed in lieu of Gareth Bale while Andy Murray grimaced via video link by a pool in Miami. Mo Farah was interviewed remotely too; introduced diplomatically by Gabby Logan as "the man with the unbeatable plan".
They also handed out an oxymoron: giving an award for Unsung Hero of the Year.
While the Irish award attracted an odd level of objection last week, the BBC award is one of the most over-hyped awards in sport. There is an odd reflex among British media to hail an athlete's crowning achievement in his/her sport as merely adding further weight to their claim to the SPOTY award; as if recognition by the Beeb is the ultimate achievement in sport. (This notion has evidently been disavowed by Danny Murphy, so little has he tried to impress viewers on Match of the Day of late).
In the ultimate subversion of the BBC's hype: fewer than a million people bothered to vote for the much-vaunted British award:
Wow. Fewer than 1 million people bothered voting in #SPOTY. @jcorrigangolf pic.twitter.com/KrICGpERPJ
— Nick Treby (@NickTreby) December 18, 2016
Proof, perhaps, that getting het-up about these individual awards is a waste of time. But even those complaining about McGregor will have realised the importance of RTE's show.
2016 was a hell of a year for Irish sport (the odd administrative arrest expected), and in an otherwise miserable year, sport performed well for us the Dylan trick of forgetting about today until tomorrow.
That said, we won't forget about 2016 for some time.
BODcasting
Brian O'Driscoll proved himself to be an excellent summariser during BT's broadcast of Leinster's shellacking of Northampton. So good, in fact, that we forgive him for describing the performance of a player making way ten minutes before the hour mark as being a "nifty fifty".
