Pat Spillane published his second autobiography this year and called it In The Blood. For many, the most interesting passages deal with Spillane's time as a GAA analyst, his rows with Joe Brolly and his eventual exit from the punditry pulpit.
Splliane was practically the last of RTÉ's old punditry guard to exit stage right at Montrose. With the Three Amigos on soccer, Spillane, Brolly and O'Rourke on GAA and Hook and Popey on rugby, RTÉ established a gold standard in TV sports punditry in first decade of this century: authentic and waffle-free, unlike so much of what we get from our near neighbours in the UK. Maybe the analysis wasn't always technical or right, but they were never dull, and they treated sport with the importance it deserves. Critically there was no social media echo chamber so viewers generally were reliant on analysts in shaping their own opinions.
Spillane himself was both presenter and analyst on The Sunday Game. The programme has surrendered its place as the most important TV show in Ireland, and that was inevitable considering the rise of social media and on-demand television. However, for the past decade or more, the Sunday Game itself has been on a slow decline.
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Pat Spillane on the Sunday Game's 'dumbing down'
In In The Blood, Spillane has some interesting thoughts on the evolution of The Sunday Game and the state of GAA analysis.
He highlights a 'dumbing down' in terms of the programme itself, and links it to the curious rise of pundits being dressed by menswear outlets.
This dumbing down crystallised on a night in June 2015 when Tomás Ó Se wore a Bond-style tuxedo on The Sunday Game to analyse the memorable Westmeath win over Meath.
A lot of new people have come in. One of the first times I said to myself 'this is wrong. I think we're going the wrong with this was the period or two where the lads started dressing up... there was a night Tomás appeared in a dickie bow. All of that eventually became absurd to me. The lads were getting clothes from various companies and would publicise that fact in tweets after the show - and I really thought there was a serious dumbing down. By looking at the clothes and paying attention to those, you couldn't be paying attention to what the pundits were saying. I thought that was stupid.
The overdressed GAA pundit has been a frequent occurrence during GAA games over the past decade but Ó Sé was the first analyst to don a tuxedo in studio. It came at a time where the dickie bow was enjoying something of a renaissance and the whole outfit was a brief talking point on GAA twitter.
Tomas O'Se has moved into 11-1 to become the next James Bond.
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) June 28, 2015
I'd say Tomás Ó Sé is wearing O' Neills tracksuit pants under the desk to cancel out the formal dickie bow gear #KeepingItReal #SundayGame
— Siobhán Doyle (@thekickart) June 28, 2015
Spillane also writes about how his fellow pundits would check their phones during ad breaks to gauge social media reaction to what they were saying. The world of social media was clearly forcing its way onto the punditry table.
Spillane also laments the rise of analysis 'jargon', and how rugby analysis has bled into GAA punditry.
I think over the years we forgot that that's what we were good at - debate with plenty of back and forth, a bit of humour, a bit of craic. But when I look at rugby analysis now, in particular, I often feel GAA analysis is going the same way. There can be element of ;if you can't convince, then confuse.' That's particularly true when it comes to jargon. When I hear the co-commentator or the analysts are talking about how this team playing a low block, or the other crowd are playing a mid-block or a high block, which isn't helping them in transition. Or this forward is trying a back-door cut or a V cut or he's not executing it properly. Without being condescending, does Paddy Murphy in Cahirsiveen or Joe Murphy in Inisowen actually know what a low block is?...Do they care?
This is old-school Spillane at work. There are a few generations of GAA fans with an interest in hearing the game analysed on technical terms, and not just having superior play reduced to hunger or desire or whatever other GAA cliché you have in mind. Surely there's some middle ground for pundits who can speak capably about how the game is actually played, and do so with a 'bit of humour' and 'a bit of craic'.
