Joe Brolly?
Neil Francis?
Ewan MacKenna?
Colm Parkinson?
Eamon Dunphy?
George Hook?
Ger Gilroy?
Paul Kimmage?
I presonally wouldn't put Parkinson or Gilroy in there and it's not particular to Ireland but by jesus we have some of the biggest arseholes talking about sport in this country. They will all claim not to be cheerleaders, hitting you with facts etc etc but they are always negative and never constructive. Empty vessels who never offer solutions just opinion usually uninformed.
The only thing more annoying is the gobshites who retweet them when they write something they agree with but abuse the f*ck out them when the write something they disagree with. MacKenna's anti-Dublin doping and his anti-rugby musings being a case in point.
Any other nominations?
Ah feck Dinny I thought you were on about this place..
Quote from: Boycey on June 18, 2018, 02:48:33 PM
Ah feck Dinny I thought you were on about this place..
Same here and with Fearon gone I was intrigued!
ha! I would nominate seafoid and his passive agressive musings for the local shit stirrer award.
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 18, 2018, 02:55:50 PM
ha! I would nominate seafoid and his passive agressive musings for the local shit stirrer award.
I'd nominate yourself for that last post in the Man Utd thread ;D
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 18, 2018, 02:55:50 PM
ha! I would nominate seafoid and his passive agressive musings for the local shit stirrer award.
Enchanté, Dinny
I would say Neil Francis and Ewan McKenna
Ah don't be mentioning MacKenna he's a lurker and will love getting a mention
He's some moaner McKenna. He's never happy about anything. If he ever got to ride a fit bird, he'd moan that he had to take his trousers off.
Gilroy is great.
Have never bought the whole "isn't it shite our journalists don't cheerlead more" spiel.
Francis is the biggest just for his sheer snobbishness. Always get the sense he'd give anything to be 18 again and playing rugby, as if it was the be an and end all in life, other than, you know, pints of Ken and roiding birds.
Parkinson is grand, the only shit stirring he seems to do is with Carlow and he seems to have a Brollyesque grudge for that Poacher fella.
Quote from: gallsman on June 18, 2018, 04:38:44 PM
Gilroy is great.
Have never bought the whole "isn't it shite our journalists don't cheerlead more" spiel.
Francis is the biggest just for his sheer snobbishness. Always get the sense he'd give anything to be 18 again and playing rugby, as if it was the be an and end all in life, other than, you know, pints of Ken and roiding birds.
Jesus I wouldn't hold that against him ;D
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 18, 2018, 04:49:59 PM
Quote from: gallsman on June 18, 2018, 04:38:44 PM
Gilroy is great.
Have never bought the whole "isn't it shite our journalists don't cheerlead more" spiel.
Francis is the biggest just for his sheer snobbishness. Always get the sense he'd give anything to be 18 again and playing rugby, as if it was the be an and end all in life, other than, you know, pints of Ken and roiding birds.
Jesus I wouldn't hold that against him ;D
It's a wee bit sad for a man of his age though, no? (or yours, our even mine for that matter!)
It's all well to joke about etc, but Francis genuinely gives off the impression that that's the highpoint of life. Sneering gobshite of the highest order.
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 18, 2018, 02:47:14 PM
Joe Brolly?
Neil Francis?
Ewan MacKenna?
Colm Parkinson?
Eamon Dunphy?
George Hook?
Ger Gilroy?
Paul Kimmage?
Wooly and Dunphy present my two favourite podcasts, I wouldnt hear a bad word about either!
Brolly, Francis and Hook are entertainers. You wouldn't wanna take any of them seriously.
Kimmage writes some good articles. And some bad ones. The biggest arsehole on that list by far. I've heard him say a few times that after he wrote his book he was snubbed by the peloton when subsequently covering the race. He was snubbed by the peloton when he was a rider before he'd written anything!
Although maybe MacKenna is his equal given what I've heard about him. But I've never read a single word he's written and never will, so I can't have an actual opinion of my own about him.
Gilroy a bit of a dick too I think. Rarely says anything worth listening to.
Parkinson is excellent. His hurling and football podcasts are great apart from Damien Hayes who is as bad an analyst as he was great a player and is full of bluster.
If you were given a Neil Francis article and a Ross O Carroll Kelly article, without the writers' names on them, you might be hard pressed to guess which was which. I don't like him but he's the only bit of rugby content I might read in the papers.
I think McKenna is genuinely brilliant though. Some of his work around the rugby world cup bid, Dublin's financial advantages and preferential treatment within the GAA, his rebuttal of the notion that rugby is no longer very elitist and Mo Farah's incredible list of links to doping were excellent, to name just a few off the top of my head. His does engage in a fair bit of trolling on Twitter but given that he winds up po-faced, self righteous types, fair play to him on that too.
Neil Francis is actually a superb writer when the mood takes him, which is frequently.
His anecdotes are certainly a lot better than Joe Brolly's, and I imagine they're a lot closer to being true.
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 10:04:49 PM
Parkinson is excellent. His hurling and football podcasts are great apart from Damien Hayes who is as bad an analyst as he was great a player and is full of bluster.
If you were given a Neil Francis article and a Ross O Carroll Kelly article, without the writers' names on them, you might be hard pressed to guess which was which. I don't like him but he's the only bit of rugby content I might read in the papers.
I think McKenna is genuinely brilliant though. Some of his work around the rugby world cup bid, Dublin's financial advantages and preferential treatment within the GAA, his rebuttal of the notion that rugby is no longer very elitist and Mo Farah's incredible list of links to doping were excellent, to name just a few off the top of my head. His does engage in a fair bit of trolling on Twitter but given that he winds up po-faced, self righteous types, fair play to him on that too.
Mackenna hasn't a clue about rugby or it's structures, he hadn't even a clue about Joey Carberry who was from his home town, a town which he constantly puts down like the arsehole he is. If he was such a good writer he wouldn't be scraping a living in Brazil. His a master troll to his credit but when your abusing on Twitter like he does your losing.
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
I've never seen a more precious Journo than McKenna, any criticism he gets generates some hysteric reactions. He's Kimmage lite, clearly wants to be a Doping exposer but doesn't have the background knowledge of someone who really knows their onions.
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 11:41:35 PM
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
I didn't follow the process but that he adopted that approach wouldn't surprise me, as it would create a bit of a kerfuffle and raise his profile. Of course, maybe he just believed it.
Quote from: bennydorano on June 18, 2018, 11:43:50 PM
I've never seen a more precious Journo than McKenna, any criticism he gets generates some hysteric reactions. He's Kimmage lite, clearly wants to be a Doping exposer but doesn't have the background knowledge of someone who really knows their onions.
He's touched on doping but it's not an obsession with him at all. If you said he's obsessed with wumming and trolling I'd say fair enough.
To be fair to Kimmage, the Matt Hampson book was incredibly moving and uplifting. He's a unique interviewer too.
Quote from: bennydorano on June 18, 2018, 11:46:44 PM
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 11:41:35 PM
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
I didn't follow the process but that he adopted that approach wouldn't surprise me, as it would create a bit of a kerfuffle and raise his profile. Of course, maybe he just believed it.
This is an example of his work on the World Cup bid. No question he believed it would have been an economic disaster. I'd imagine that living in Brazil gives him a great insight into the social and economic costs of giant sporting events to the ordinary man.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.independent.ie/sport/rugby/world-cup/ewan-mackenna-why-irelands-rugby-world-cup-bid-failure-should-be-celebrated-36283611.html
Quote from: sid waddell on June 18, 2018, 11:04:27 PM
Neil Francis is actually a superb writer when the mood takes him, which is frequently.
His anecdotes are certainly a lot better than Joe Brolly's, and I imagine they're a lot closer to being true.
He was actually a handy rubby player in his day but seemed to go missing when needed the most or when a few fists were flying.
England always marked his card early.
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 11:41:35 PM
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
Writing about hosting international events and writing about rugby are two separate entities. Anyone with half a brain knows hosting events is an economic deficit, he wasn't writing anything new. He writes in a very aggressive manner that stirs emotion, so when people agree with it, they are quite emotive. He would do a great job as a speech writer for Trump.
He reminds me of the character Tom Yates in House of Cards.
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 19, 2018, 10:35:34 AM
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 11:41:35 PM
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
Writing about hosting international events and writing about rugby are two separate entities. Anyone with half a brain knows hosting events is an economic deficit, he wasn't writing anything new. He writes in a very aggressive manner that stirs emotion, so when people agree with it, they are quite emotive. He would do a great job as a speech writer for Trump.
He reminds me of the character Tom Yates in House of Cards.
Maybe you can name a few other journalists who were critically examining the claims and numbers being thrown out by our World Cup bid team because the only dissenting voice I was hearing anywhere in the media at the time was McKenna's. If everyone knows that hosting sporting events is an economic loser, why were the bid team able to spout pie in the sky figures about profit with the media, aside from Mckenna, universally cheerleading the bid?
Quote from: johnnycool on June 19, 2018, 10:30:19 AM
Quote from: sid waddell on June 18, 2018, 11:04:27 PM
Neil Francis is actually a superb writer when the mood takes him, which is frequently.
His anecdotes are certainly a lot better than Joe Brolly's, and I imagine they're a lot closer to being true.
He was actually a handy rubby player in his day but seemed to go missing when needed the most or when a few fists were flying.
England always marked his card early.
That's not entirely inaccurate but in his defence his career coincided with Ireland being dreadful. He had a great match in the win at Twickenham in 1994, and also in the near miss against Australia in 1991.
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 19, 2018, 11:07:31 AM
Quote from: Dinny Breen on June 19, 2018, 10:35:34 AM
Quote from: Asal Mor on June 18, 2018, 11:41:35 PM
He was the sole dissenting voice in the Irish media during the Rugby World Cup bid and did great work exposing it for the sham, built on false claims and figures, that it was. How much he knows about the game of rugby or Joey Carbery is completely irrelevant to that.
Writing about hosting international events and writing about rugby are two separate entities. Anyone with half a brain knows hosting events is an economic deficit, he wasn't writing anything new. He writes in a very aggressive manner that stirs emotion, so when people agree with it, they are quite emotive. He would do a great job as a speech writer for Trump.
He reminds me of the character Tom Yates in House of Cards.
Maybe you can name a few other journalists who were critically examining the claims and numbers being thrown out by our World Cup bid team because the only dissenting voice I was hearing anywhere in the media at the time was McKenna's. If everyone knows that hosting sporting events is an economic loser, why were the bid team able to spout pie in the sky figures about profit with the media, aside from Mckenna, universally cheerleading the bid?
https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/features/sporting-events-pay-for-themselves-in-happiness-not-money-218440.html (https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/features/sporting-events-pay-for-themselves-in-happiness-not-money-218440.html)
That's from 2013. It's nothing new.
There are other intangible benefits to hosting tournaments or even participating, I still remember the buzz around Italia 90 and it felt like a catalyst for change.
Are the media only allowed be negative and not present the positives of hosting a tournament? I am all for balance, something MacKenna never presents.
Ewan having a go at BBCNI's Gaa coverage.
http://www.punditarena.com/features/emackenna/mackenna-on-monday-white-collar-sectarianism-second-citizen/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Is Fearon gone? What's the story?
Quote from: Oraisteach on June 20, 2018, 08:15:12 PM
Is Fearon gone? What's the story?
Like Armagh GAA he's largely faded away and irrelevant these days
Quote from: Oraisteach on June 20, 2018, 08:15:12 PM
Is Fearon gone? What's the story?
He suffered the fate of the Armagh 10 for punching below the belt.
OK, what dis Fearon actually do?
He suggested a child was complicit in his own sexual abuse in a high profile case at the time.
Did Stew go as well?
Was Fearon banned? I thought he just left
Quote from: Jayop on June 18, 2018, 04:42:50 PM
Parkinson is grand, the only shit stirring he seems to do is with Carlow and he seems to have a Brollyesque grudge for that Poacher fella.
I like Parkinson's podcast.
That was a very enjoyable one he did last night from Letterkenny, with Devenney, Kevin Cassidy and Marty McGrath, and then Eamon McGee, Oisin McConville and Raymie Gallagher. Lots of good and funny stories, especially Devenney telling all about the goings on of the Donegal squad in Donegal Town after the (I think) 2004 Ulster Final.
Quote from: J70 on June 22, 2018, 03:22:55 PM
Quote from: Jayop on June 18, 2018, 04:42:50 PM
Parkinson is grand, the only shit stirring he seems to do is with Carlow and he seems to have a Brollyesque grudge for that Poacher fella.
I like Parkinson's podcast.
That was a very enjoyable one he did last night from Letterkenny, with Devenney, Kevin Cassidy and Marty McGrath, and then Eamon McGee, Oisin McConville and Raymie Gallagher. Lots of good and funny stories, especially Devenney telling all about the goings on of the Donegal squad in Donegal Town after the (I think) 2004 Ulster Final.
Where would one obtain the podcast?
https://soundcloud.com/sportsjoe-gaa-hour/the-gaa-hour-live-from-the-orchard-inn-letterkenny