The English language needs updating following Jim McGuinness's Irish Times column today, according to Joe Brolly. The word 'irony' is simply inadequate in describing the spectacle of Jim McGuinness warning that defensive coaches are leading Gaelic football down a dead end. He said as much on Off the Ball tonight.
Irony is not a sufficient word. We will need to invent a new word... It's a bit like the inventor of myxomatosis lamenting the fact that rabbits are dying. Jim's obviously someone who's keen on his legacy and all of that and it doesn't take a genius to work out what's happened to the game and once teams started to try and mimic Donegal's style, then it was obvious what was going to happen.
(Laughing) I mean I have to say that I did enjoy the column. But I did think it was breath-taking itself in its audacity...
Since leaving the Donegal job he has heaped pressure on Rory Gallagher without ever mentioning his name. Jim is extremely Machiavellian make no mistake about that.
Later on in the course of an absurdly entertaining interview - we have now got to confront the reality that Joe Brolly is a genius - he declared the manner in which Gaelic football is currently being played 'unacceptable'.
When attempting to get across the fury of the crowd watching a recent defensive encounter, he paused and asked Joe Molloy could he curse on the programme.
'What's the curse?' Molloy asked.
Brolly chose to answer Molloy's question by continuing the anecdote.
The people in the crowd shouting - can you curse on this thing.... 'Kick the fucking thing!! You can hear the people screaming all around us 'Jesus, will you kick the f-'? And boys refusing, turning around and hand-passing it back, kicking it laterally across the field. And people becoming enraged.
Later on, Liam McHale appeared and was surprisingly forthcoming about what went wrong for Roscommon on Sunday. Usually, when members of the management team pop up here, they start moaning about 'entertainers' acting as pundits. There was no complaint about Brolly's assertion that Roscommon were 'useless'. He stuck to describing Roscommon's woes, which centred around their inability to break down Galway's defence.
He also agreed with Brolly's proposal about kickout in which the ball has to landed between the two 45s and there are limits on the number of players who can encroach on the area before the kick-off.
