No Punditry For Old Men

There is a very British trait emerging in the realm of our sports journalism. Lampoon and harangue everything and everyone. Our sportspeople should be venerated not chastised. Save your scorn for incompetent politicians and crooked financiers. Leave Robbie Keane alone. He, amongst others, has never failed in his passion or commitment, has manifestly given his all every time he pulls on the jersey yet attracts the bile of hacks who in their wisdom detect something lacking in the character of the man. And what’s worse is it transmits to the sheep on the terraces who start to boo instead of getting behind the team. Another British import, are we as a nation incapable of having a collective original thought. If they do it in America or Britain it’s good enough for us. Booooo, aren’t we great lads? Sophisticated fans, well versed in the nuances of the game. We know dross when we see it.

At the end of Staunton’s reign apparently it was all about the results. He was seen as a man incapable of getting us results. Trapattoni was appointed to get us results. Which is exactly what he is doing. Only now it’s about the results AND Andy Reid. Who knew the landscape could shift so flippantly? You see Trap is perplexed by this; anywhere he has ever worked his techniques were lauded as long as he was accumulating the points. He was accorded the respect that his stature and track record merited. He has been blindsided by the sophistication of Anto and Deco who, apparently, all of sudden, demand results and champagne football. Champagne football into Blue Nun players won’t go.

Who are these guys to second guess Giovanni Trapattoni? A man who has achieved as much as he has still has to suffer being second guessed in press conferences by two bit hacks in a language he does not understand. Humiliating. He will handle Andy Reid and Stephen Ireland how he sees fit for the overall good of the team and the ultimate aim of procuring results. These hacks believe it displays considerable insight and tactical savvy to know enough to be even second guessing him in the first place. That’s why they do it. “I know enough to know that we don’t have enough creativity in midfield”. Great, good man yourself. Do you think Trap has not considered this? Do you think you are capable of insight that has eluded a man who has won everything he has attempted? Get behind the team and give it a rest.

How much of the blame for this can be laid at the door of the sheep cheerleader Eamon Dunphy is hard to work out. Eamon has been one of our leading pundits for a generation now. Eamon touted the claims of Paul Jewell for the Irish job. That, more than any of the countless shockers he has been guilty of over the years, encapsulates the extent of Eamon’s insight.

He has achieved something remarkable, he has ascended to the top of a field about which he knows four, maybe five fundamental things. These tenets are trotted out at every opportunity in a “passionate” manner which replaces the need for any real insight or indeed, research. The sweeping statements on European nights bear this out. “Spain has had to import ALL its top level defenders, which is strange for a country the size of Spain” The Argentinean Robert Ayala was identified as the proof of this thesis. And nobody else, because Eamon did not know of anybody else who fit the profile. Yet there is something about the delivery which means that there are people who will take away this erroneous tripe as gospel. “Italian football is in the toilet". This is knowledge that Eamon has garnered from his regular trips to Milan, Rome and Turin to experience first hand the deterioration he refers to. One can only presume he has people on the ground in Italy as well who provide him with the detailed feedback one would require to arrive at such a conclusion.

Yet we still defer to Eamon because we have somehow come to believe that saying something defamatory about some one or giving an airing to your latest churlish prejudice is edgy punditry. We laugh at the BBC with their boring shirts and their well informed, well researched, balanced, judicious assessments and think how lucky we are to have Eamon to verbally dismantle forty goal a season Ronaldo every week. Podge and Rodge is not comedy, Eamon Dunphy is not a pundit – he’s the bearded lady. Putting Dunphy beside Souness on European nights in the hope that he can goad the Scotsman into a row is cynical, childish and manipulative on the part of RTE.

All of this could of course be justified if it was indeed any good, if it provided any entertainment. Alas all it provides is the same tired spectacle, another depressing example of the Irish obsession with playing to the gallery.

If I knew four things about Economics would this entitle me to hold down a position as Chief Economics Correspondent for RTE for twenty years? You would have thought that fairly soon the game would be up. Well the game was up for Eamon some time ago but the Barnum and Bailey factor so beloved of RTE producers has kept him where he is. Himself and his doppelganger George Hook.

George Lee is capable of telling us more than that the Financial Regulator lacks moral courage or is devoid of a cutting edge going forward. We insist upon genuine insight and expertise in the area of politics and finance but are perfectly prepared to waive those requirements when it comes to sport, an area we are all supposedly obsessed with.

Time to empty the bench.