Multi-award winning sports journalist with The Irish Times, Malachy Clerkin is the latest guest to join Seamus Brady on the An Cluiche interview series! In this interview, Malachy discusses his career in sports journalism, as well as reflecting some of his own personal thoughts on today’s games and the improvements that can be made in a very insightful and enjoyable conversation! #gaa #irish #sport #gaelicfootball #theirishtimes #malachyclerkin #seamusbrady #ancluiche #playongaa #lukepeyton #lgfa #hurling #camogie #ireland #journalism
Yes hello everyone welcome back to another interview here on un with me Sheamus Brady your house for this one I am joined by malaky clerin this is interview 19 here on the show this is an Irish Times sports Rider Maliki it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on today
How are you thank you for having me on Sheamus is delighted to do it I’m doing great good stuff good stuff me too we were talking there off area saying we’re fresh off the back at the time of recording we’re fresh off the back of round five of the aliens football
Leagues this league has been a bit crazy I mean you’ve got der absolutely flying but then double and beat them this weekend we have stories left right and Center cair falling in division two Cav flying in division two there’s stories everywhere you look what have you made
Of the aliens league so far yes it’s it’s an odd one because I think teams are still getting a little bit used to the schedule like we’re sitting here on the first Monday in March and um it’s absolutely freezing outside though there’s still the last bits of a Snowman
In my front garden that me and my we girl built last Friday and the championship is four weeks away you know so it’s um I think teams are getting used to to a difference sort of schedule usually this time of year you’d be 10 weeks away from the championship and now
Teams are like basically championships a month away so like over the weekend like even injury-wise like Lee Ganon pulled his hamstring Saturday night for the dubs own mlin pull his hamstring for Mayo H are those guys going to be back for the start of the championship be very tight like so it’s
Um I think a lot of teams are basically Um their first job was basically get to Six Points so that they don’t have to worry about relegation uh now the teams that are worrying about relegation have to decide whether they care about Rel getting relegated or not like obviously done division two you know it will it
Would affect getting to play in the S Maguire or not but um you know for say the bottom of division one the monan have had a terrible League they’re after getting four hiding in a row to go to terrone in the next game did they and they have Cavin in the
Preliminary round on in olster in the first week of April so are they really going to kill themselves to stay in division one are they going to choose that over the Oster Championship when you know Sam Maguire is what matters or the Sam Maguire Championship so I think
It’s um I think everybody is still flying a wee bit blind do you know what I mean like I think I think everybody’s kind of trying to get a panel together trying to get um trying to get everybody fit for the for the start line and in a
Way I think it’s there’s almost more of a phony War than ever about the league you know 100% I’m not sure there’s a lot of Shadow Boxing going on but at the same time one of the things that I find gas is Dublin won it last year they like
They won the all iseland but all of a sudden everyone was saying as if Dublin had mastered this art of deciding to win at a certain stage like that’s a a lot it’s a buzz word now that if a team loses it’s like oh well they’ll win in
The league as if it’s as easy as clicking your fingers and go okay now we’re gonna start winning Games Dublin just hit form at the right time and other teams ran out of gas and Dublin hit form at the right time and carried on but like the Ross common game they
Wanted to win that game in croak park it was a bad performance it wasn’t something that Dublin were tactically taking their foot off the pedal like I just feel like in this it is so condensed that injuries are having as you said as big an impact as they’ve
Ever had on the games because if you get injured in round four of the League round five of The League you could be out for the rest of the year and that wasn’t the case years ago absolutely yeah yeah um but yeah so I I think you’re right like
You know teams will still have good performances and bad performances but um um if you looked across the teams that played say just the weekend gone by um I’d say outside of Kerry and possibly possibly Mayo possibly very few teams had their best best 15 on the pitch or or anything
Approaching it now I’d say krie had probably 12 maybe 13 of their first team outs Derry certainly didn’t Dublin probably didn’t goway didn’t monan didn’t is the most striking one go mon are the most striking ones that they are the teams that are nearer to the bottom
Of the table and they didn’t put out their best 15s no they probably put out as good a 15 as they could like because they’re both both of massive amounts of injuries you know um but maybe in other years um like uh they would be rushing players
Back a little more they would be trying like oh we might be trying to get Shane Walsh and Damian comr back a bit more Conor mcmanis would have played more than just a substitute appearance by now you know so I just think you know everything is so much tighter and
Everybody got a first taste of it last year and so they’re reacting now in a way to decide what what their priority is going to be come the summertime but yeah it makes it all very interesting it definitely does because teams have to approach it differently and everything
Make sure it is very much a season now to condense you don’t get the breaks that you used to get and then on top of that when you’re talking about relegations to division 2 again it’s not the Beall and end all the the last four all Ireland finals if you want to say
2020 Mayo had got relegated from division one that year they still made the all Island final 2021 May were in division two they made the all isand final 22 gway made the all iseland final after being in division two and last year of course Dublin won it from being
Inis two so it’s not that you’re you’re down there and the Gap is really not there between the top half of division two on division one like I think if AR man and dny G were up in division one you could even argue Cav with the fun that they’ve been showing they’d still
Be picking up you know results here and there and you know putting up a fight to those teams it wouldn’t be a straight back down to division two no I think you’re right yeah um I think where the Gap is really is between the top of
Division one and the next sort of 10 teams you know I think uh Dublin and carry are probably a bit ahead of of everybody else Derry and I don’t know who’s along with Derry maybe Derry mayo and gway or whatever in the next here and then you know the next sort
Of seven or eight counties could all play each other 10 times and win five each that kind of thing and then going just now to you you’re off the back of an incredible year in sports journalism you were named the broad seed sports writer of the year for for 2023 how did
It feel to to pick up this on it it was great yeah yeah yeah like the those awards are like they’re great they’re they’re they you wouldn’t want to place too much store in them obviously um because they’re all subjective judgments and all of that sort of stuff but um I really en
Like I had done some good work in the in the year running up to it and some of the pieces that I entered really meant a lot to me um I did a piece about um a young footballer who took his own life and I did a piece about a jock who uh
Became afraid of falling off horses and they I did another piece about um young kids following David Clifford around the country watching Club matches um and I think those sort of that’s the sort of stuff that I I try to do you know it’s not I try not to be too
Obvious and not to not to kind of you know do the stuff that everybody else would think of doing um and so yeah I was genuinely I was really really delighted to win um you know it’s over when it’s over and you kind of try and win the
Next year and all that sort of stuff but um no it was great yeah and like the one thing that I no was particularly in the jockey piece and everything was one of the things about your sports right as well and your interviews and everything is it is rare
That people remember that the athlete is a human being like with just everything like that that’s crucial and the things that I was going to ask you is when you’re interviewing someone and when you’re doing a piece with them is that the most important thing to getting the
Best interview out of the athlete to just remember that away from the sport they’re just another person yeah yeah like it’s it’s something that it sort of takes you a long time to really properly realize um because our we grow up and we’re into sport our concept of who these people
Are is so conditioned by watching them on TV and or even seeing them in the flesh um they are able to do things that we’re not able to do and so we put them on a pedestal and you know we treat them differently because of this incredible skill and talent that they
Have and we mean very well by doing that you know we we we do that as a compliment to them and we do it as you know with a bit of Yearning in ourselves that Jesus I wish I was able to kick a ball like David Clifford or
You know ride a winner like Brian Cooper or whatever um and I think if there was one thing that I sort of learned very quickly as a young Sports journalist was that you can’t be can’t be intimidated by Sports people um purely because if you are then what
You’re doing is that you’re bringing your interpretation of who they are to a new conversation and you might think that being intimidated by them is essentially a compliment to them or it gives them a kind of an upper hand but actually it’s a sign of disrespect really when you think about
It because what what you are doing is that you’re coming in to a conversation with preconceived ideas of who this person is and anywhere in life that’s a dis disrespectful thing to do and straight away they sense that you know what I mean like that They feel it way that that you have decided that you know who this person is and um if you do that then they won’t they they won’t really tell you who they are and I think I think my the way that work has basically always been about trying
To get people to tell me who they are that’s like if you want to if you want to draw a line through through anything that I try to do it’s really that um and that probably that can sound like an odd kind of way to approach Sports journalism because people want
You know they want facts and they want stats and they want um to know you know how uh teams are picked or they want to they want to know how you know tactics are formed or they want to know all of that and that’s all true and it’s all very
Important but I think the best way to do that is to get people to tell you who they are and the more people do that the truer they are the more insight you get no that is very true and like on top of that if they feel like that you’re
Talking to them with that same respect like I think it’s okay to have like an internal thing of like wow this is this person but on the outside you need to be composed and you need to you know conduct the interview yeah but you have
To get over it as well sham you know like I definitely Jesus I remember first um thing that I was sent to outside of like the first really sizable event that I went to was the I’d say the 2002 Rider cup and it was the one that was refixed after
911 you’re you’re far too young to know about any of this but but 911 2001 you You’ probably heard of 911 all right but uh but the ryer cup was cancelled uh was supposed to happen a month later and it was put forward by year and so in late September 20 2002 or
Early October uh I went and covered the writer cup and so 2002 I was 24 had I just turn I just turned 24 and um this is my first time you know I covered a lot of GAA but it was my first time I think I might have done the odd
Ireland soccer match but like it was the first time really being on the ground with people that I watched on television and uh um I really didn’t do well like I didn’t I didn’t write well because I I think I was intimidated by it you know like Tiger Woods was playing
Phil Mickelson was playing poric Harrington was playing um all these sort of global Stars people that I would just kind of watch and be a Gog with and um I remember coming home from it uh and I did find like the stuff in the paper was fine I was writing for the Sunday
Tribune at the time and I did okay like it was Grand and and when I got back a couple of people said they liked what I had written but I knew myself that I had I had sat in press conferences and not put up my hand to ask a question uh I
Had when I had asked a question I hadn’t followed it up I didn’t have confidence in what I was doing really and I think at its heart when I thought about it afterwards was you know what you kind of got overwhelmed by it kind of got a bit
Star eyed kind of got a little bit too you know God isn’t great to be at a rider cup and um you have to get past it you know you can’t like it comes back to exactly what you’re saying they’re they’re just people they’re just they’re
Just people and they have a skill that is incredible um but you know they if they drink a bottle of water they got to go to the toilet you know you know they’re the same as everybody else you know so you gota you got to
Treat them that way and um it’s uh it takes a while it definitely takes a while in sport because everybody that gets into sports journalism pretty much into sport first and journalism second and um uh you got to get over it you got to just you can admire them you can and the
More that you get attached to sports people and the more you’re around them the more you have a soft spot for them because the more then you know exactly what it is that goes into who they are and what they put into it um but
Uh I kind of think that that the the flip comes when you get close and you realize that you admire them for the stuff that you know about them rather than the sport you know what I mean like that like it like just the fact that I don’t know they’re an Olympic
Boxer is great and it’s brilliant um but like I I’ve got to know say Kelly hton pretty well um and I admire her for the person she is you know um the boxer she is is fantastic and is amazing and to do what she has done is incredible and and I
Hope she gets another gold medal in Paris um but when I talk to her the sort of soft spot I have for her is because of the person she is I think that’s I think I think that’s okay I think that’s that’s a that’s a more legitimate sort
Of soft spot that you can have for a person and you shouldn’t let it blind you of course when somebody does something wrong you should cut call them out for it as I did when Kelly got into trouble last year but you gota you got
To do it from a a position of knowledge and I think that’s what really journalism is it’s it’s knowledge like we especially in sport we see so much sport on TV we see so much um of sports people on social media and all of that sort of
Stuff um but if you’re going to make judgments on people you need to do the work to get to know what their motivations are where they come from what their what what the building blocks of who they are are um and that’s the work that’s what the work is well that’s
It and I one of the one of the best ads I’ve seen in a while is and when I seen I was like thank God it’s it’s taken long enough for them to make an ad like this but they to take a moment ad where you know they have the fans criticizing
The players and everything or criticizing the ref and it’s just like the L reg Gales for me is a perfect program in terms of how they just open that little window into who they are as a person and they show you what they’re going through like for example Richie
Po’s episode where it talked about his gambling addiction um things like that where you’re like wow I would never have thought at the time just watching him that that’s you know what was going on in the background at the time Thomas niblock’s interviews as well with the ga
Social are fantastic like where you know he talks to people like oim M he talks to people like Frank mcgan like they’re really really good interviews and that’s it when you see the person behind the athlete you get better answers out of them about their preparation because they’re talking about you know their
Life and everything like that and then again once you know the person like I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Tony skion for this he was on and then I watched his ler Gale after and I was like I didn’t think it was possible to like him
More I actually do now that I know fully his story because theer girl hit on things that I didn’t hit on during the interview yeah exactly yeah and exactly that’s that is the that’s what I’ve found over the years is that you know uh talking to people and finding out about
People is I don’t know look I I just find it a more fulfilling way to go about the work than I don’t know uh banging out a thousand words about man united every every fortnite although I do that to the old time as well yeah but
One of one of the most it’s funny that you mentioned about working with them and that the more you’re there behind the scenes and everything like I’ve I’m two years into my journey I started when I was 20 I’m 22 now I’m like the things that have helped me the most to kind
Because I I will admit when I started when I was 20 I was very staro if I got to interview anyone I was very like oh my God this is great the things that have helped me the most when I kind of look at it weirdly enough is like the
Having a cou of tea with someone or having a few biscuits and then you chat about the game and you realize actually I can just have a conversation with this person they are just normal yeah because when you hear them on telly so much or
You hear them on the radio and then you hear them talking what two feet away from you you can be a bit like oh my God that’s did it but then once you talk to them you realize it’s just a normal bloke like and for anybody outside of
Here who doesn’t know who they are they wouldn’t be acting like you’re acting just because you’re a big fan of their work yeah but and also like television is such an odd thing like television is such an artificial medium you know like sports television is it’s mostly about filling time in
Between ads really um you know because it exists because of advertising and you know half time analysis fulltime analysis all has to be squeezed into a specific three minute 30 segment uh and you have to fit four voices into those three and a half minutes and then go to the next ad break
And all of that sort of stuff so the way you see people on television is just not normal you know it’s not it’s not who they are sitting down having you know so um yeah look people are just people and journalism is just telling people stories there’s a great
Line oh God I’m GNA sound very pretentious now but there a great line by Ernest Hemingway where he said something along I’m going to get it wrong too um said something along the lines of every man’s life deeply told is a novel I think it’s something like that
Um and I like that’s like the truth of that is is is right there you know I have written pieces about oh like Judo players and badminton players and you know junior football soccer players who have one leg kind of thing and their story once you sit down and
Put a tape in front of them and tell them tell me about your life like you find you find great stuff there rather than you know find far more interesting stuff than going to a Desi fire press conference have to do that too like of course but like bring bringing it back
Even before the rider cup I read that you got into it in 1999 after winning a sports riding competition that was how you originally got into sports writing in the Irish Times what was that like when you realiz that obviously youd won well um I don’t know let’s go well I
Might even go back a bit further like I had no real interest in journalism I had no real interest in sports journalism I was mad at sport all right but like I had no notion of being a Sportster I wasn’t one of these teenagers who wanted to be a
Journalist to fight Injustice and change the world or anything like that I I I wanted to be teacher really and and even at that I don’t know that I wanted to be a teacher I just didn’t have any Great Notion Beyond I liked school so maybe I
Could go and be a teacher and then I made a balls of my economics exam in my leave insert and got like a a bad C instead of a low a or something like that and it cost me the points that I needed to get into St Pat in drum condra
And did you journalism was my second choice um and I went to dit in Anger Street and and kind of walked in the door going I have no notion what I’m walking into here no really not that no real interest but I was kind of going okay I guess
I’ll do this for a while and see where it takes me um and uh it was this again that’s going to sound alien to somebody your age but this was the 1997 and um very few houses in the country had the internet um and the colleges were really
Only starting to get it but the internet sort of exploded in our College around sort of 97 98 99 and with it I basically found loads of old Sports writing old American Sports writing Sports Illustrated you could read every article that had ever appeared in Sports Illustrated going
Back to the 50s you know and um by sitting reading that sort of stuff I kind of got a sense of yeah I’d like I’d like that world i’ I’d like to be in that World um was there any particular work that you looked at any yeah like like those those
Writers like uh Rick Riley and Gary Smith who were two completely different writers like Rick Riley was a kind of a piss take artist a real kind of wise crack guy he wrote an 800w colum in the backer Sports Illustrated every week um whereas Gary Smith wrote four pieces a
Year and they were all about 12,000 words and he’d spend you know months and months um he said he wrote said one time that he never wrote a word until he had spoken to 50 people for an article oh my God Jesus Christ you know so the two
Complete opposite ends of the scale there you know a guy sitting down writing 800 words every week bang bang bang and another guy who’s taken four months to to write every write one piece so even those two guys kind of appealed to me as okay so Sports journalism can be this and sports
Journalism can be that and presumably it can be everything in between as well like those are the two wide end of the spectrum and um so that was what you know that idea that you know because to me like sports journalism was going to matches and writing about the match and maybe
Getting a few quotes afterwards and those two guys or there the work of those two kind of made me go well no Sports journalism can be be anything really you know it can like people are into sport they want to hear stories about the people who are playing the
Sport go and do it from there and so that was what I did you know um now I say all that now you know that’s 26 years ago whatever the [ __ ] it was um the piece I wrote for that competition in 1999 like you know I completely cringe at it now you know
It was very studenty night so it was November 1999 that I entered this so I was 21 I just turned 21 and um the piece I wrote was a really studenty opinion piece about IR Irish soccer and the Irish uh uh inferiority complex when it came to Global Sport and
You know wild generalizing ations and stuff like that I wouldn’t in a million years right now or or better again that if a student journalist sent to me right now I would kind of go come on who do you have who do you think you are like you’re just you’re just some young
Fellow uh which is what I was like I was a young lad um like I came from manahan moving to Dublin was even a huge thing for me you know to be in a big city or what I considered to be a big city uh to
Be kind of to be in a place where you know at the drop of a hat you could go out to a gig or you could go to a match like you know you could head away Headway to T park or daily man you go to
A soccer match H you could go to a rugby match you do whatever the hell you liked you know like you just weren’t able to do that in rural Ireland where I came from so I knew nothing about the world like I knew absolutely and and the best
Part was that I didn’t know what I didn’t know I had no idea of anything really and to be you know pontificating about the Irish inferiority complexes outrageously but but look there might there were a few terms of phrase in it that that um that got caught the eyes of the judges anyway
Um and basically I like I I I put this is going to sound like fake humility but I put I put an awful lot of my life and my career down to down to luck really down to being um Lucky in the places that I’ve managed to get myself to
Um and like the the most lucky of all was was finding myself in the Sunday Tribune at that age um I won that competition there were it it came with two uh prizes one prize was 500 like this is pre- Euro the Euro wasn’t even in yet so500 was about 650 Euro in
1999 which let me tell you is it’s about having in 2024 it’s probably like a grand handed to you as a 21y old student it was an unbelievable price to I couldn’t like like I was I was working as a buan at the time uh to supplement
Like to go to college really I was working in waxford Street which is now opium in waxford street or the Opium ruins I think it’s called used to be the main Fiddler and I was working there um like three nights a week like taking home whatever 40 50 Quid a night you
Know to have a bit of walking around money you know uh but so like this was a colossal prize uh but also what came with it was two weeks work experience and I’ve always kind of joked that that was uh the two weeks work experience were supposed to be in the spring of
2000 and the Sunday Tribune closed in the spring of 2011 and they still owed me my two weeks work experience because I didn’t get my work experience what I got instead was they basically put me to work really um so I started off there on weekends uh like on a Saturday afternoon
It was it would have been my job to take in like the Greyhound results from around the country and the rugby results from the AIL and put them on the on the page for the this Sunday paper and that’s how I started basically I was in there uh weekends kind of subbing copy
And putting things together and and as time passed I got chances to write bits and pieces here and there so I was still in college you know I was I only I graduated from college in May 2001 by which time i’ I’d already done 18 months
In the in the Sunday Tribune you know that that became my my weekend job and um I was able to give up the bar work you know um but yeah like that was an enormous break for me Sheamus like it really was because it wasn’t like it wasn’t like just getting your
Getting your foot in the door just anywhere the Sunday Tribune was an amazing place to be a young Sports journalist um if you look around uh a lot of the the sports journalists that that people would know now so many of us start started in the
Sunday Tribune you know you take me you take Paul Howard you take David Walsh you take Dennis Walsh you take and mavo Kieran Shannon Miguel Delany uh y McKenna you take um Philip Lanigan um generations of us came through the Sunday Tribune and we all came through it we were all there as
Young kids we all made all our mistakes and we all got chances to to try and expand and try and learn how to do things and it was um it was a phenomenal place um and that’s why I say I was lucky look I know that once you get
There you have to do the work and you have to be any good and you have to be diligent and you have to work at it and you know there is no luck in longevity but but I could very easily had like I always say like the sort of person that
I was I know a lot of sports journalists starting out it’s such a tough thing to start out with because you have to hustle for freelance work and you have to try and impress people with the the work that you’re sending in and you have to send
Them in stuff you have to get heard you have to get noticed and I I I know the person that I was when I was 21 would have been terrified of of all of that just I just didn’t have that kind of neck you know
That kind of Moxy that kind of here you know you got to listen to me you you know I’m I’m I’m I’m the next I’m the next good sports writer I just I I was very shy I was very I would have been very intimidated by um by Sports editors
And all of that sort of stuff and um but winning that competition um much apart from the cash kind of it it allowed me to jump the fence really and once I was in there you know I could relax and and could could improve um as time went by because it
Was such a great place it it like the the patience that they had and the tradition that they had or bringing bringing young Sports writers along um was fantastic it really it it was it was the greatest break I ever had in in my career hands down absolutely
Yeah said and then I am the I am in agreement with you that you need a bit of look but then you also make your own look as well and if you work extremely hard people are likely to you know give you an opportunity and everything like
That and you when you arrive on to the scene 1999 this is a fantastic period of G because from 1999 up until 2007 when Kerry eventually went back to back no one went back to back it was me then krye then goway Arma terone kry terrone kry again and the Rivalry of course
Between kry and terrone was one of the Ral Ries that defined that era of gaic football it was the Rivalry that defined that gaic football era what was it like to cover the games at that time yeah I’m like I almost laugh at myself back then because it’s it’s it’s a funny
Where I it’s not that I wasn’t really into G but like soccer was definitely my sport growing up really I was I played far more soccer than did gck football um I watched far more soccer than I did GC football now that partly that was because Monahan were appalling in the
90s I think manahan won two championship games in the whole of the 90s like so it was it was not um it was definitely not a thing that me and my friends would do in the middle of the summer take ourselves off to watch Monahan get beaten up
In Celtic park or encasement park or new or wherever the hell you know like there was and there was certainly no trips to croak park for us you know that was it in the 90s like I mean the Osa teams der w at the all end the teams were great
But but we weren’t we we were sh like we sh um but um so like it’s not that I wasn’t into G but but but by with when you get into to a place and you want to work and you want to be a sports writer and they say okay will you
Do some GA you go yeah I’ll try new loads of well now in a in a hilar like there are definitely people dubs in the Sunday Tribune then that presumed that because I was from the country I was big into GAA and I didn’t disabuse
Them of the notion I just I said yep sure sure i’ cover it like guarantee the first like you know whatever about gck football like they sent me to cover harling like and I you know really really wouldn’t have known which end of the stick to hold at that stage um
So um but yeah so so I started covering it I’d say I covered like 2000 was the first championship I really covered for the Tribune you know um Arma came through that Championship uh they all finally went to a replay doublin or not kry and gallway um and so it was like
Sheamus Min against pork Joyce and all that so it that was great you know great introduction to it um and the next few years yeah the aler teams were great CRA you know and they were great to cover they were full of interesting people fun of interesting stories ARA were great
Teron were great um the fact that they annoyed everybody down south was also great that was a lot of fun um and look those carry teams were amazing and look it was a great time to cover GAA I’m definitely I remember twice interviewing colum Cooper the week
Of an all Ireland final like going down to Karne and having a coffee with them I in a way that you just can’t do now you know just that’s that that’s just not open to you same kic McAn Allan the week before the terone terrone first all and final
2003 I just tell you how young I am uh or young I was I’m not young anymore um but uh I had to get my mom to drive me up to the mac and Allen house in Ben BB in tone H because I couldn’t drive yet I I literally wasn’t able to drive
The car so like I had my mother had to drive me up the road to to to meet caric back and Allen you know um but like you were able to do this stuff uh you were able to meet these really famous sports people um in the runup to an all AR
Final and like those that sort of access is just gone you know it’s just it just doesn’t exist anymore um that’s one the main things on top of that that we were talking about seeing the person behind but another key trait for your interviews I imagine especially because
You know so many of the players now another key key component is trust that that that person trusts you that you’re not going to put them in a difficult situation you’re not going to ask them about something that they don’t really know how to answer like you’re
Not going to try to catch them and no no exactly so if they know is my friend they’ll do a better interview yeah well to to a certain extent but look the certainly in the G now that just doesn’t exist at all you know really certainly with the top teams doesn’t
It’s not it’s not a thing um uh get the odd interview here and there during the league but not really um and you know um basically well look there there’s no point sugar coating it J Jim Gavin and the dubs really killed it um they just
Yeah it was I remember it was the P pacoy year was I think the first one that I noticed a big difference um yeah but even that was even that was a wee bit different uh gy was was was far more open giloy used to have press conferences the week of League games
Like on a Friday morning you know up at St cla’s and they bring you in and you can meet three players and do all that sort of stuff um and I just went away all together so like like the dubs were um they just became completely averse to
Any publicity that they didn’t control themselves and look they n16 all irand in a row and but the problem was that everybody that was trying to stop them win the six all IRS in a row looked at them and went well if they’re not doing it then why the hell
Would we do it and um so yeah I look this is not me moaning at all I I I gave up I gave up moaning about it a long time ago because you kind of youve got to get on with life and you know that’s fine
Uh I do think that the ga will lose out in the long run I do think that I when you look at the just the one thing that I noticed when you looked at the 2000s I’m not saying that it was just because Dublin would give the interviews at the
Time but krog Park had 82300 people for Dublin versus leash in the lster final in 2007 and it was also because of the way that Dublin played Dublin were very rock and roll style football where catch kick straight down the field and it wasn’t this we’re going
To hand pass we’re going to hand pass hand pass and then shoot from a percentage position now we didn’t really do that against Kerry but I remember 2021 I absolutely hated the way we were playing football in 2021 just that I the Mayo semi-final was a perfect example of
That that we dominated the ball for 50 minutes and by the time that 50 minutes was over we were only four points ahead and Mayo undid it in five minutes because they actually went forward and so yeah I think there is something to look at there and this is the next
Question I’m going to ask you is obviously in the ga lately we have a new President jlot Burns he’s the 41st GA president his first address to the Congress he did down all he thought anyway he sounded like he very much had his finger on the pulse everyone I’ve
Met who has met jarth has very much spoke to what a gentleman he is and his first address he spoke about the game and he spoke about how he could make GIC football more attractive to both play and to watch yeah he did yeah uh I’d be
Interested to see how that rules out you know um the game is the game it’s the players that play the game uh it’s coaches that that dictate what the game is um I don’t know how radical that that group is going to be um uh like short
Of you know insisting that three or four players stay inside the opposition 45 like I think that’s the difficult one oh well I think that would be reasonably enforceable like I I don’t I don’t get why people think that wouldn’t be enforceable like I don’t understand how
How hard it would be yeah I suppose but for example player if a player was to stand on the line or stand inside the line or you could have a v style situation where his hand is over the line so that does that mean that he’s
In yeah but like how often does that happen like you know like it’s just because typical GA fashion I could see it happening in a big game like where I don’t know I think uh I think the the the point is to change how the game is
Played like it’s not to try and you know you know live on the it’s not like an off Sid line like it’s it’s that you change how the sport is played and I don’t know I I I don’t know how difficult it would be to enforce I’m not
Saying that I necessarily think it it should come in but I I will be interested um I think if you look at this league even I think teams are kicking the ball a lot more I think that could be partly done to I think managers are tired of players
Getting injured and so they don’t want them running all day and so maybe they’re making them kick the ball longer probably is let the ball do the work and will that really be the case in the summertime when the ground is harder and people can run for longer
I don’t know um yeah look I I’ve seen an awful lot of GA presidents come and go I don’t want to sound like a like a bored old fart here um but ultimately GA presidents have very little power you know they’re a ga president is a figurehead he’s a
Man that goes to an awful lot of rubber chicken dinners he opens a lot of club houses he hands out a lot of medals um he can have ideas and all of that sort of stuff and certainly Burns is one of the most high-profile because he was a a renowned
Player and has been a renowned pundit in all the years since um but I will definitely not be getting carried away because what can what can a g president do ultimately you know anything anything that He suggests has to go through Congress anything that can be really uh
Put into action is done by the chief executive and Central Council G president can can argue for things and all of that kind of stuff but at the end of it I don’t know how much he can do really so we’ll see yeah no it’ be interesting to see I know personally
There’s a there’s a couple of RS I would love if I could WI a magic oneand and just make them happen overnight that the first one for me is glaringly obvious and has been ever since I started watching the sport is just to use the countdown clock instead of this nonsense
Of adding on three minutes when it could be five but maybe it’s two and then everybody’s interpreting how long and then they Play 2 Minutes extra and they said they would and if you countdown clock and it stops the time is indisputed and that takes it out of the
Referee’s hands it just seems to make sense yeah clock at a junior weekend what how do you do a countdown clock at a junior B game correct I think that for for those ones you do go with how it’s been but at this you do go with
How spin but for the Intercounty games I would do what the lgfa have a that stops anytime the ball goes out and it’s counting down but I would implement the rugby thing that once the Hooter goes you’ve one more play yeah need one more shot and then it’s Undisputed then because if it’s
Time wasting and the clock stops well then it’s out of the referee’s hands how much they have to add on and they can just focus on refereeing the fouls in the game and everything like that yeah I don’t know I don’t know how big a deal the time the time thing
Is I think I think they’ve started a big issue in a Monahan game do you remember 2020 when Dublin were I think Five Points behind going into injury time and the F played nine minutes of additional time and David BR Hit The Equalizer yeah but like the the the time that they add
On that was the first year of them adding on proper time um and I think everybody’s happy enough with it now aren’t they like they add on five six minutes to every game kind of but it’s just like when you’re in the stadium and you’re hear you know three minutes and
You hear people around you be like ah you never hear three minutes anymore though do you like it’s usually you usually hear I think you’ll usually hear three or four no no everything is five minutes now really at the very least yeah because they had think the club
Final was the club final I think was three and there were people Ming the yeah but if you watch the club final uh the club final is different to the end County scene in the end County scene oh everybody used all it’s it’s 70 minutes but every all
Teams use all their substitutes so you’re talking 10 substitutes have come on and maybe one one blood up you watch the club finals Club finals they have massive panels but they’re they’re they have very few clubs have more than 17 players that they’re going to trust to
Play in an all Ireland final you know so they STI the three minutes is just about all they add on in the in the in the provincial and all are in club stages because a lot of teams only use like two subs three Subs so yeah I don’t know
That the time keeping is that big a deal I I I I think they have kind of fixed it by adding on proper amounts of time I don’t know how long you want these games to go on either you know like the these players are playing 80 minute games if
You keep stopping the clock they could end up being out there for 80 85 90 minutes and there’s like their amateurs at they pack of it you know I I think there’s just one that like that I would do it how the lgfa do it that they don’t stop it say when
Somebody’s about to take a Freer they don’t stop it when you know when what what I would I think there’s definitely an argument for it in um when there’s a black card like I think there’s oh yeah that’s painfully obvious all of a sudden you have cramp or
Something like and the the countdown continues for your black card that’s stupid but apart apart from that I think when the hooa goes I think it would be deadly because if the hooa went in kog park and everybody knew he only had one more shot and you were a point behind or
It was level I think the drama would be incredible if you knew you only had one shot you be like our kind of buzzer beater almost in basketball that this is it this is your last chance and it would give way to some potential iconic winners so are you telling me that that
In a crew Park game currently when there’s only one point between the teams all the teams are level and one of the teams is attacking you’re telling are you telling me that that you don’t feel the drama at that point of course oh I
Do okay why do you why why do you need a Hooter for the D I do but say in certain instances so it’s a very good question I’ll give you the examples that I’m thinking of here so cork Donal 2012 colum O’Neil gets a free and it’s one
That he might go for goal and he asks the ref are you going to H blow the whistle and the ref kind of is like can’t really tell you that like and then colil fires it over the bar and then the ref Blows the Whistle immediately after
D go go through to the final H 2013 Killian o Conor takes two freeze against Dublin he puts them both over the back runs out of time if they know exactly how long they have left if they can look up and say right we have 30 seconds to
Get one score and then the Huda goes and we one more attack yeah fair enough yeah I think it takes away the confusion and again crucially it takes it out of the referee’s hands that he can go he doesn’t need to go oh will I let them have one more attack
It’s no it’s out of your hands once the hura goes there’s no interpretation there’s no human decision it’s an AI clock that makes the call and nobody can argue with it yeah maybe yeah I don’t know I’m not sure it’s that big a de but
Sure maybe I think I think it was one that I noticed I think it was one that I noticed particularly around the monan dubling game in the league that few years ago but as you said it does up a 10-point lead that night they bloody long before Davey burn SED
Forward so I would be blaming the monan uh team that night now rather than the referee but then the last question that I wanted to ask you uh so two more questions for you and moving from that period where kry then won back to back along with obviously
Dublin coming in with everything the rise of social media was massive and all of a sudden you had Sports podcasts puffing up and you’re a regular guest of course on second captain which is one of my favorites one of my dad’s favorites as I was telling you off here as well um
How did you adapt to that like that the whole social media world of coverage exploded at that time um I you adapt to that I don’t know really um you kind of do what you do you have your core work my my core workers for for the Irish Times um I’ve always
Enjoyed doing like uh radio um I would have G back to sort of mid 2000s I would have done an awful lot with the off the- ball Lads um as they were so before they became the second Captain’s Lads but even since they left News Talk um I
Would have I’d have a great relationship with Joe Malloy and Jer Roy and um the the off the ball guys that are that are there currently um I I don’t particularly enjoy uh radio and podcasts if if I’m completely honest about it um I any sort of small sort of social media
Storms I’ve I’ve ever gotten myself into are generally because I’ve said something on a podcast that I hadn’t thought out completely whereas when I’m writing something I sort of sit down and I have fully formed thoughts and I have logical cogent opinions that I kind of think out
Um whereas uh I find you know podcasting a bit kind of I can kind of take myself down on tangents uh that aren’t fully thought out and and that’s how I get myself into trouble a bit um but you know look it’s Sports trouble it’s not actual you know
So it doesn’t really matter um but I quite uh I definitely we did I did a podcast in the Irish times for a while um just a general Sports podcast that was kind of using our sort of array of sports journalists and the different sort of subject areas that they covered
Like Golf and rugby and GA and soccer and all of that and um yeah I I I wouldn’t say I loved it but but I I think there was a bit of value in it it kind of got killed off by the pandemic and uh we’ve never really we’ve never
Really resuscitated it uh properly um that’s interesting because a lot of podcasts emerged because of the pandemic right yeah yeah whereas ours just kind of di to death uh well put it this way the the pandemic happened and All Sport globally disappeared for three months and um we were we had we were
Busy enough trying to fill four Sports pages in the newspaper every day when there was no sport happening so we we decided that putting a a sport putting a sports podcast on top of that was was maybe a bridge too far but um I don’t know like I find the social media thing
Interesting in that it kind of It kind of es and flows uh definitely there was a phase around sort of 2012 20 13 where we all thought as Sports journalists that Twitter was going to be the thing that would save newspapers because we could bring our our own
Stories to a new audience and they could find the newspaper that way and so the online the online ification of the newspaper didn’t necessarily need to be such a bad thing because here was a here was a way of pointing people people who may not come across the newspaper ordinarily here was
A way of pointing them at the content in the newspaper um but we were of course incorrect in that in uh you know Twitter and Facebook basically ate up all newspaper advertising and and sounded even a louder death nail for newspapers than was originally the case and that wasn’t
Going to we weren’t going to we weren’t going to offset all that loss of advert in by pointing an extra 20 people at at an article that I had written about I don’t know an all Ireland hland final so um I find it I find it interesting I
Find Twitter you know very tiring in a way um I find that it I don’t get this anywhere near the same enjoyment out of it as as I used to like I use it for finding articles now and and putting out articles but you know it used to be great crack it
Used to be a great place to follow something it used to be a kind of a very enjoyable social outlet uh you know where you could as you’re watching say a big sporting event you knew that there was yeah ever a couple of hundred other people doing the same and you could all
Snark at each other and it’ be forgotten the next day but Jesus Christ you can’t make a joke now without uh devolving into a row and I [ __ ] hate rowing with people uh on in in any context anyway but certainly on Twitter about sport Jesus Christ I’m very toxic I can
Even beond toxic like it’s just so it’s just so pointless like it’s so and and it’s so kind of I do get I do I am quite wary as well of trying to service Twitter listener Twitter um responders too much because when it comes right down to it
Like there’s such a small percentage of Irish people are on Twitter it’s like is it even is it even double figures like like that are regular daily users of Twitter like it’s it’s probably eight six seven eight% of of the Irish population so and of that how many of
Them are into Sport and of that how many of them are into say G so really you’re talking to a tiny slice of a tiny slice of a tiny slice of a tiny slice of people and why would you then why would you then tailor your
Content to such a tiny slice of a tiny slice of a tiny slice of a tiny slice aren’t you then responding to a minus number of people when really your gig is to reach a maximum number of people so I so that’s a very Rand about way of
Saying that I take I don’t really take Twitter very seriously and I don’t really take Facebook very seriously and my Instagram game is a appalling it’s just it’s it’s it’s an old man Instagram game I and and uh and I’m not on Tik Tok
So uh I I do try I do I do kind of I do keep an eye on all these things because I know that that’s where the future is and I don’t I don’t want to be left behind by it on any level but I also know that the work
Itself has you know has to live and die by its own merits you know you can’t can’t take social media comment on your work too seriously look obviously when people pick holes in something or say you’re wrong about something you have to sit and ask yourself those
Questions of course you do you know there’s absolutely no I no divine right to be correct in anything I right I I completely get that and very often when somebody picks me up on something I come back and say you know what you’re absolutely right I that was my [ __ ] up I
Was I was wrong I didn’t think that true properly um so yeah when you’ve made a mistake it’s worth you know listening to Social Media but um too much of Journalism I find tailors itself um for how social media might react and I think that’s very dangerous I
Think I think even if even if you you you end up with good work you you sort of got there by the wrong reasons and it won’t always work you know um you’ll end up doing you’ll end up trying to appeal to too small a slice of the people you need to appeal
To and ultimately that’s that’s going to be harmful you know if we want we want paid media to survive you know you gota you got to get away from just talking to a small amount of people yeah that’s it and uh look you’ve given great answers and definitely the good answer about not
Being intimidated by anyone but surely to God you are slightly bit intimidated by this fell this one of my favorite photos and that like obviously I’ve met you in person you’re not a small book but G hegerty is I am a smart I’m a very smart man G hegerty is massive though
He’s a big was absolutely insane yes and and and if people were Eagle eyed when it was enough there the man is standing in his [ __ ] socks and he’s still is he oh he is his socks in absolutely huge yeah he’s a big dude yeah and worse that was after the
2021 all irland final yeah there was it wasn’t the it wasn’t the absolute empty 2020 all Iron FL was the 2021 where the stadium was half full and he um I waited and waited outside the limic dressing room for well over an hour to see could
I get talking to any players and the only reason that I knew that they’d have to come out was because their meal their postmatch meal was being uh laid out on the table outside and so that’s what he has in his hand there that’s his his Curry chip or whatever
He’s going back into eat and uh so Not only was he ing over me his his food was getting cold so he was very s he’s he’s good lad girl but um yeah H that happened because that exact spot where I’m standing outside the limeri dressing room there is directly across from the
Place under the Hogan stand where the Press photographers do all their work after a game so they go there and they pick out what photos that they’re taking uh and they’re sending and to the newspapers and all of that so they have a little room there where they can sit
And do all that because like press photography you get rained on all the time so they have a little room there and the great great Sports photographer H James cromby uh who works for the info Sports Photography agency um who is like the man like he’s he’s a genius he’s an
Absolute genius anybody with any interest in photography at all he does some amazing Wildlife photography um bird murmurations and stuff like that but you should check out James cromby and the little [ __ ] was sitting looking out that little room and I was standing right across from him and he he
Took a snap and sent it to me afterwards um so um yes as you as you can probably guess he’s the one who he’s the one who took this one is he that’s exactly it yeah he’s he’s sitting in that he’s sitting in his little photographer’s
Room and he took out of me and uh so I uh I I you talk about social media I immediately put that up on Twitter that that night um because um I I am your caption was brilliant as well your caption was brilant but you gotta you gotta allow people to you
Gotta allow people to laugh at you like you can’t you can’t take all of this too seriously like it’s just sport at the back of it all and um uh I am a very small man she there’s no doubt about it I’m like I’m I’m about 5 foot s like and
And he is very much not 5 foot s so there you go well that was it was one of my favorite favorite captions the one intimidating [ __ ] and gal hegerty yeah you have to back yourself over social media when you when you’re able to come up with captions like that but
List Maliki it’s been a been a great chat it’s been absolute pleasure hopefully I’ll see you over the 2024 season see you around the way thank you so much for asking me no problem
