Not content with making an example out of Conor McCarthy once, when criticising his post-match interview on eir Sport last Saturday week, Joe Brolly used his Sunday Independent column, eight days later, to take a second bite at the cherry.
“Conor McCarthy scored a quite brilliant hat-trick for Monaghan against Donegal,” wrote Brolly, “then appeared before the cameras looking as though he had just been told he had 48 hours to live.”
It was the type of childish, schoolyard bully talk that was very much on par with the bravado that followed on eir, “If I had scored a hat-trick in a League game, I would have been absolutely bouncing. Let’s get pints in the Dungiven club, wasn’t I unbelievable!”
What Joe should probably have considered was that the buzz of McCarthy’s first-half hat-trick had probably worn off by the time he was interviewed, which may have also been around the time he realised that the pubs were closed and that Joe’s pints suggestion was out of the question. A late missed chance in a game they drew but should have won may have also been on the 25-year-old’s mind but in reality, it’s not him but Brolly who should be coming up with excuses for this performance.
"You would think Monaghan got beat!"
Joe Brolly isn't impressed with Conor McCarthy post match reaction despite the fact that he scored a first-half hat-trick for Monaghan!
Live on eir sport 1!#AllianzLeagues pic.twitter.com/vHchIHeWTw
— eir Sport (@eirSport) May 22, 2021
The topic came up for discussion on The GAA Hour Hurling Show, of all places, when Paddy Stapleton called on public figures like Brolly to have some consideration and empathy when speaking about young players who don’t play football to be interviewed after the game.
“I do think there is another part to it that people in the media don’t understand,” said the Borris-Ileigh man.
“Most of those people now, are exuberant and outgoing and that’s their personality. But if you look at players, players are good at sports. Now some of them are really outgoing and do you know, they fire it out. A lot of them are very quiet people though. If I was teaching for example, and I ask a senior cycle student to talk about their homework, they go into themselves.
“I think the likes of Joe Brolly has to be a bit more empathetic and realise, ‘oh this is a quiet chap, doesn’t know what to say. His head is going a million miles an hour because he’s on television for the first time and he’s just reaching for any cliche he can get to get him over the line.”
“I think people need to be mindful of that. Not everybody wants to be out there, they could have hang-ups about their own personality and who they are. I’d be very adamant about that. I think we should just be happy for the people who are exuberant and that personality that we could enjoy.”
On the same subject, former Dublin dual player Conal Keaney says that players would often be told what message to give off in their interviews.
“There’s definitely an element that you don’t want to be the person in the group who’s making a fool of themselves and a fool of us. On the other side, not that it’s media training, you’re definitely given guidelines, no matter what the questions are, of the guidelines we want out there.
“Sometimes, we’d get an email or a WhatsApp if there was a few of us doing media, it would be ‘this is what you say. Keep it to these general points.’ If you don’t, you wouldn’t be asked to do another media gig. People do these media gigs because a) they want to do it or b) they’re getting a few quid for it. Nine times out of ten, when we were on the football panel with Pat, the guys who might be liable to slip and say something, they just wouldn’t be chosen to do the media then…”
