Make-up? That wasn’t part of the agreement.
That was what I thought as I politely said “no problem,” and plonked myself down in front of the Setanta make-up artist who was tasked with turning my unshaven face into something approaching broadcastable.
The lady in question, Carol, plastered me up a treat as I returned to the green room to nibble on some of the nicest pastries known to Dublin City.
Myself and seven other Irish sports journalists were in the Setanta Sports studios to give punditry a bash with just days to go until the Premier League season and, to be fair, none of us had any real idea what lay ahead for us.
After the slap was applied and the snacks were gobbled, we were taken in to meet our host for the day… Connor Morris.
Connor, the straw who stirs the drink during Premier League Central, gave us a quick introduction to what his Saturdays entail once the season gets underway and revealed that it’s a 12 hour day which requires lunching and dinnering in the brief bits of respite that occur all too seldom throughout the day.
Kenny Cunningham, who is a lot more verbose than even his outspoken TV persona would lead you to believe, then explained how pundits approach the day, enlightening us as to how the analysts keep abreast of the goings-on in the early kick-off, the 3pm game and evening match which is a lot more than checking their Livescore app from time to time.
The former Republic of Ireland defender also filled us in on how early in the week they have to prepare for talking points as they require the production crew to pull footage of certain incidents or goals days in advance.
Cunningham wasn’t the only pundit in attendance. His former international teammate and all-round lovely fella Matt Holland was also there to help walk us through the ordeal but most of his morning was taken up with shushing Kenny.
Celtic legend John Hartson also came along and it was clear that if any of us kicked off, he’d be the problem-solver.
We reporters were all paired off and assigned to a pundit and I was given the privilege of working alongside Cunningham himself and another sports writer Paul Fennessy as we joined Morris in a mock panel to analyse some talking points from last season.
Luckily, Paul and I didn’t have to go first as we were brought into the gallery to meet the programme director and learn about all the technical stuff that instantly left my brain as I focused more on keeping my hands to myself so as not to burn the building to the ground.
We watched Matt and John take their pairs of journos through some goals and the pressure was on as both groups nailed it in their first takes.
What stood out most from our experience in the gallery was how professional a job Connor Morris does as he deals seamlessly with the comments from the director while juggling the panel. It’s mind-melting how easy he makes it look.
Then came time to get in front of the camera and, I’m not going to lie, I was a little bit nervous having seen how perfect a job the earlier lads had done.
We were taken to the producer, Jamil, who asked us what we wanted to discuss about Liverpool. I opted for an analysis of Jordan Henderson considering he’s taken the captain’s armband after Steven Gerrard’s departure stateside.
I was told to identify the talking points from a goal that Hendo had scored against Man City last season and Jamil did all the technical graft of circling the midfielder and tracking his run.
I was mic’d up and boom, we were away.
Paul was asked about the signing of Benteke and he did really well with his breakdown of a header from last season.
Then Mr Morris asked me about Henderson and, after a little bit of word-tripping, I managed to make my point about the Manchester City defence’s failure to show him on to his weaker foot.
Before I knew it though, Cunningham chimed in with a question. A BLOODY ADDITIONAL QUESTION THAT NONE OF THE OTHER LADS WERE ASKED!
Didn’t he know that there was a Life Style voucher up for grabs?
My mind raced to think of every Liverpool midfielder and I was able to just about articulate my belief that Brendan Rodgers didn’t have a top class holding midfielder to play alongside Jordan Henderson in the centre of the park.
As the director called time on the brief discussion, Kenny joked about the fact that he decided to grill me and we all left to remove our make-up, return to the green room and battle for the last of the pain au chocolat.
There’s no prizes for guessing that I didn’t win the voucher. That went to the deserving winner, Jamie Moore of 98 FM.
.@JamieMoore98fm wins ‘Best Pundit’ award for our #PLCentral launch today with @lifestylesports. Video coming soon. pic.twitter.com/dMu1Cd7Cht
— Setanta Sports (@SetantaSports) August 6, 2015
But what I did get was the knowledge that punditry is a lot harder than it looks… So lay off Phil Neville and Michael Owen lads.
Presenter Connor Morris and pundits Kenny Cunningham, John Hartson and Matt Holland were at the Setanta Sports studios in Dublin today to mark the return of Premier League Central for the 2015/2016 Premier League season. Premier League Central is back on the air this Saturday, August 8th at 8.30pm.
