Having been been one of the best Gaelic football of all-time during his time on the pitch with Kerry, Pat Spillane would go on to become perhaps the most prominent voice in the GAA after hanging up his boots.
There are a whole generation of GAA fans who think of 'Pat Spillane the pundit' before his time as a player, something that is understandable when you consider that he spent three decades as an analyst on the country's most popular sports show.
His time on The Sunday Game was sometimes controversial, but it was always entertaining. The Kerry legend certainly was not afraid to make his opinions known, even if that meant upsetting a few people.
It was the end of an era when he stopped away from out television screens last year, bringing to an end one of the most iconic broadcasting partnerships on Irish television.
READ HERE: Dolly Parton Reveals She Still Has Páidí Ó Sé's Jersey Hanging In Her Home
GAA: Spillane feels TV reputation did not reflect his real personality
Pat Spillane may have had a certain reputation as a pundit on The Sunday Game, but he feels that the personality he became associated with as a result of his time on TV was not a fair reflection of how he was in his everyday life.
Speaking to the Sunday World, he said that he came to loathe how he was viewed as a result of his work as a GAA pundit. In fact, he feels that we were only give one glimpse of the 'real him' during his time on the show, which came during his final game as Kerry defeated Galway in the 2022 All-Ireland football final.
I spent 30 years in The Sunday Game and the one thing that used to p*ss me off is that I felt that those 30 years, speaking about four hours a year live on television, was defining me as a person.
And I was sort of saying to myself, ‘I’m not that person on The Sunday Game — he’s the fella who hates this, he’s outspoken, he’s loud, he’s opinionated… and while I did that on The Sunday Game, that wasn’t me...
That two minutes (after the 2022 final) that I cried and broke down and became very emotional was for several reasons.
Kerry and Galway were also in the final that year with ‘The Tribesmen’ coming out on top. I cried because my father was associated with Kerry and Galway in the 1964 final.
He was a selector, he got a slight pain in the chest the Saturday night before the game..
He wasn’t going to let his county down… and on the Tuesday after he came home from that All Ireland he was dead...
In that two minutes those four important strands in my life — father, family, Templenoe community, Kerry — came together and I got an amazing reaction after it.
I got thousands of best wishes and cards and I couldn’t reply to any of them. It was the first glimpse they got of the real me.
An emotional Pat Spillane speaks about the legacy of the Spillane family as more All-Ireland medals are added in this generation #sundaygame #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/wsUpZZgLP4
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 24, 2022
Pat Spillane would also say that the fact that his nephews Adrian and Killian were part of the Kerry panel that day only added to the emotion of the occasion.
It is interesting to hear that one of the biggest figures in the GAA felt we did not get a fair reflection of his personality during his time on TV despite the fact that he was on our screens for 30 years. Clearly, the controversial reputation he had at times was something that did not sit well with him.
SEE ALSO: GAA Considering Adding Intriguing Game As Curtain-Raiser To All-Ireland Final
