Newstalk: Off The Ball

Adrian put it well this morning in the breakfast show.

FAI say they have a new man coming in at beginning of April.

if this is true, the new man comes in and these friendlies are irrelevant.

if this is not true, O’Shea gets the job because there is literally nobody else. So these friendlies are irrelevant.

O Shea passed the test on Saturday but failed last night. He had no ideas on how to change things. I didn't see Brian Kerr with him so it was Whelan and McCarthy giving advice. After last night I think we have to look past O Shea. Poyet doesn't seem like the greatest option either though.

It will be interesting to hear/see how OTB spin a new manager. Will there be constant comparisons to Stephen Kenny? (Who they heavily backed - to the point of farce)

Will they now be mentioning the poor player pool if Ireland lose/perform poorly, or the players Stephen Kenny "blooded" if Ireland win/do well? As a justification of their previous narrative?

I wonder will OTB will drop the dream of playing football the "right way" / philosophical notions? And instead just be pleased if the next manager gets a bit of structure, urgency and energy back to Irish football? Basically what Irish players are naturally good at, the workrate and effort.

OTB's backing of Kenny is sort of like Dunphy defending Keane 20 years ago.

It took about 2 to 3 games to figure out Kenny wasn't up to scratch.

If they want to restore credibility on this they would do well to forget about his reign and focus in on the merits of whoever gets it.

I'd hope it wont be O'Shea.

Not just because it could be Stan Mk II but he's also a likeable enough lad and really our last major player at the very highest level.

I'd hate for his reputation to be threatened if it went badly for him over Ireland.

I wonder how that works, going out on their own.

It’s a much easier sell to pay €10 per month for lots of content every day, basically there’s always something to listen to all year round.

Hurling pod is only twice a week, and I don’t think they even have one during the inter county close season. Or even during the league, when it’s pointless enough trying to analyze anything.

Happened to be in car Saturday for the lunchtime panel talking about their favourite sports documentaries, is it just me or does that Roy Curtis fella go to unnecessary lengths to sound articulate.

He tries to model himself on Con Houlihan. That's it, in a nutshell. He was in my class all the way through secondary school. He was alright.

The Irish women's rugby team sold out Croke Park. Fait play to them, that went totally over my head.

There was jeopardy, it was knockout. Its just a pointless competition nobody cares about.

There was 37k at Cork v Clare and 34k at Limerick v Tipp. There's nothing to be learned from rugby, they sold out an ERC SF, the GAA will pack out Croke Park later in the year (not that this was your point). To compare the ERC SF to a Leinster SF is ridiculous.

The Leinster championship isn't the All Ireland Championship. I think you'll find both Kildare and Offaly are out of the Leinster Championship after losing. They are also out of the All Ireland Championship and in the Tailteann Cup. If they won their games, they'd qualify for the All Ireland Championship. That's jeopardy.

Some unfair comparisons being made. GAA capacities are designed to cater for one-off finals at a maximum, Gaelic grounds could fit 25% of the Limerick population at one time, Monaghan could fit 70% of theirs.

Rugby is less tribal with just the four teams, catering to much larger support bases. Leinster riding a wave at the minute with a massive population in a competition played by French and Irish clubs (*England don't seem to care from what I read on the outside), meanwhile in the England you've also got top clubs closing their doors.

Anyone hear Kenny Cunningham last night on OTB?

He had a head cold by the sounds of it, but I have never heard someone being so rude and noisy on the radio before, it was shocking. He snorted and sniffed his way through the bit I heard, pulling snot constantly up his nose. And it was so obvious, often stopping mid sentence to do a huge, noisy sniff.

Not sure why the sound person or producer didn't tell him to go and blow his nose during one of his breaks.

No surprise there. Loves the sound of his own voice

You should never aspire to be like talk sport, it's awful quality radio.

He's marmite.

Talks a lot of sense at times, but really loves the sound of his own voice.

It's bottom of the barrel stuff but it's what sells, unfortunately.

Jordan was excellent around the Super League time but can be hit and miss, some awful fools on Talksport like Jason Cundy and Jamie O'Hara.

Agreed. Himself and White are a pair of shock jocks. Grand in small doses.