Relations between Gaelic football managers and the media have plunged to an all-time low. Damien Barton was the latest to tell the football media that most of them had no idea what they were talking about. Kevin Walsh rarely fails to review the media's (poor) performance after a match.
It is Tyrone, however, very much the hot team of 2016, who remain the brand leaders in giving the media what they don't want. If Tyrone win the All-Ireland this year, then RTE are presumably going to have to dream up an alternative to the All-Ireland winners banquet. Some proposals for their producers to ponder.
1. Live from the losers banquet
In years gone by, the Sunday Game evening show on AI Final night used to carry a brief segment from the losing team's banquet. It was usually a dimly lit, low-key affair in which a couple of brave faces would be hauled in front of the camera and asked to account for what went wrong.
This year, RTE may be forced to dust down the now unfashionable segment and perhaps send Marty, Ger and Michael Lyster down the Burlo or the City West or whatever shack the losing team are holed up in and present a daringly left-field edition of the Sunday Game in which all present ruminate on the nature of failure.
A possible byproduct of this is we may even see a Man of the Match chosen from the losing team in an All-Ireland final for the first time in 23 years.
Galway hurler Padraig Kelly, who kept the shackles on DJ Carey so well in the 1993 All-Ireland final and scored a magnificent point of his own, would no longer be the last man to hold this bitter-sweet distinction.
If someone has a dusty, grainy old VCR of Kelly picking up his bit of Waterford Crystal off Ger Canning at the sombre losing banquet, please, we're urging you, as an act of public service, put the damn thing up on youtube.
2. A double bill of Reeling in the Years
It is written in the RTE constitution that whenever they are faced with an unsightly gap in the schedules, they're duty bound to slap on an episode of Reeling in the Years.
Perhaps as a means of making it up with Tyrone on All-Ireland final night, the 2005 and 2008 editions could be screened back to back.
3. A Hidden History documentary on former UK prime minister Herbert Asquith's relationship with Ireland
A provocative move from the state broadcaster this, one probably borne of frustration at Tyrone's spurning of their plans.
This history of HH Asquith would no doubt centre on the Home Rule crisis and his stressful haggling with John Redmond and Edward Carson over the status of the Ulster counties.
It was during this no doubt frustrating process that Asquith referred to the entire county of Tyrone - over which there was a great deal of argument - as 'the most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of mankind', a verdict which placed him in sympathy with several Kerry footballers of the future.
4. A documentary on Sean Quinn
If RTE wanted to finish forever any chance they have of mending their desperate relationship with the Tyrone senior footballers, they could fill the gap in the schedule with a programme on the sad collapse of Sean Quinn's business empire.
Presented by a whizz kid business correspondent from one of the national broadsheets, the show would have to include footage of that infamous monster meeting in Ballyconnell when the entire membership of the GAA seemed to be in attendance. Mickey Harte was, of course, notable by his prominence.
5. A programme honouring the glorious history of Tyrone football in the 21st century presented by Brian Carthy
If they were minded to make an unsubtle pitch to worm their way back into the affection of the Tyrone setup, they should screen an hour and a half long ode to the glorious modern history of Tyrone football.
Brian Carthy presenting. Talking heads include Frank McGuigan, former President of the GAA Peter Quinn, UTV's ex GAA guru Adrian Logan, and not Joe Brolly.
6. Alf
Television viewers tuning into RTE on 25 June 1990, hoping to watch 'Alf' were cruelly denied because a World Cup football match ran over.
As one licence-fee payer said on Liveline the following day.
I tuned into RTE expecting to watch 'Alf' and with no warning, it's just cancelled. Deferred they say. It's not fucken' on, excuse my language Marian, but is this what I pay my licence fee for?
[NOTE]: Marian Finucane was the presenter of Liveline back then.
It has even been alleged that RTE never screened the 'deferred' episode of Alf.
Well, this is the perfect chance to finally show that episode. It was screened on American TV that February and was entitled 'Mr. Sandman'. It was the 20th episode of the fourth and final season of Alf.
In it, Alf and Willie scour the Death Valley looking for buried treasure after coming upon an old map.
