Indo GAA
Jarlath Burns’ input into the Ger Brennan saga | Jeopardy in Round 2B | Listener mailbag
10 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the Ger Brennan suspension saga about?
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Hey there, we are Indosport with me, John Molloy. We cover sport and we have things like this.
If Andy Farrell really wants him to stay in the Irish set-up for the next World Cup, they could extend his contract out beyond the World Cup. But the Irish youth could pick up the tab on it. And Leinster, I'm sure, wouldn't object to having him in the squad if they weren't paying for him. So it doesn't make sense that both of them want him, but none of them can keep him.
There's no doubt in my mind that he would be in the Irish World Cup squad going forward. He's still a very, very, very good player. Very experienced.
This is an Irish Independent Podcast. The night to be joined by Dick and Pat once again. And it's a Pat's Balan who's fresh from a little trip across the Irish Sea. By all accounts, Pat, you enjoyed the trip and the Sligo boys came away with the W, which is first and foremost, obviously. Yeah. Very enjoyable weekend.
You know, I was just thinking, Michael, I must be the only person outside of Sligo and I would imagine there's only about maybe 10 or 12 people in Sligo that has the last four matches that I have attended were watching the four lowest ranked teams in Ireland.
after the league so in no particular order I went so the fourth last team in division four Tipperary ticked that box third last team in division four London ticked that box second last team in division four Leitrim ticked that box and the last team in division four Watford and I love a bit of glamour, Pat.
It must be like going to lockdown for you, Pat.
In fairness, like I said, it's been off-Broadway, but it's been an amazing experience to watch those four teams in action, but in particular to meet the supporters. Let's just talk about the teams. I look at Tipperary and I look at Leitrim and you see players like we talked about, Sean O'Connor and Joe Higgins of Tipperary and the likes of Barry McNulty.
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Chapter 2: How do the panelists predict Round 2B outcomes?
It's the place you want to play and if you can win, well and good. But yeah, it's a brilliant, brilliant character. It's probably unfit, you know, just slightly, as you say yourself, Michael, segwaying. I mean, The pity about it, and we're going back into this split season and this congestion.
I mean, this weekend in 24 hours, there are 12 championship matches in Gaelic football, four quarterfinals in the Tarleton Cup, and eight matches in the Slam Maguire. Twelve matches in 24 hours. And you talk about the Tarleton Cup, and it's brilliant, but you take... I don't hear them, and there's no one complaining, by the way, or anything like that, but you take Sligo, who...
Winter had to fly to London on Friday because they flew from Dublin. So it meant that most of the fellas had to take a day off work on Friday, which I'm not complaining about. Flew to London Friday night, played the match, came home Saturday night and are back in action again. And you start to say, wouldn't it be nice to get a two-week break? But it's a packed schedule, 12 matches.
And here's my gripe, and we're back into it again. And I was writing an article the next Sunday about balance and getting the balance right in terms of free-to-air games and games behind the paywall. But But I look at the eight big matches in the Sam Maguire and you start to say, three of them, three of them are not being shown anywhere, either behind the paywall or live. What are the three?
All-Ireland champions. Kerry, that's number one. The second game involves Donegal, the championship favourites against Cork. And the third game is a big talking point. Gerrard Brennan returning to... the sidelines to manage the dubs. Now, I talk about, like, bear in mind that McCool Park in Ballybuffet and Central Park in Newbridge are both probably sellouts.
So having live TV will not affect the audience. And you could have a major, major talking point. What could be the major talking point? That either Dublin or Kerry or both of them could be gone out of the championship and no one has seen them live on TV. It's crazy, crazy scheduling. Well,
Well, I would hazard a guess and say, Pat, that there will be more national media covering the Dublin-Cavin game than any other game this weekend. Because Gerbrennan is off his suspension. There's that jeopardy. Now, they're unlikely to lose and there's talk of Conor Casey potentially being out for Cavin as well. But that's the mark. That's one of the biggest games of the weekend.
So what we're doing, we're not giving the people of this country a chance to watch the David Cliffords, to watch the Michael Murphys in action. And remember, bear in mind, this is at a time where from this Thursday, for the next couple of weeks, RT will have 104 live World Cup soccer matches.
Like, it's a known goal by the G, that we're not, in the few weeks that we're left, and we talk about marketing the game, and I see Hurling Man, who's a And you're one of those men. Hurling Man was giving out... You're one of those men. I'm damn proud of her. And Hurling Man was giving out a couple of weeks ago about so many hurling games behind the paywall.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the Ger Brennan incident for Dublin GAA?
You mentioned it last week, Pat. It was just with the provincial winners and Meade. So Dublin were never set to appear at that. But he was talking about the differences in the case between Jim McGuinness and Gerbrennan and that one was dealt with by the referee with a red card and then the other was dealt with a different way by the referee and it were different things.
And then Gerbrennan released a statement through his solicitor, Conor Sally. This got... This just kept going and going, Dick, really, didn't it? And even Jack McCaffrey was up in the media yesterday doing something with PTSD and it's still going.
I was astounded when I heard initially the comments from our president and even that he talked about it at length at all, that he sort of didn't just play a simple politician's role and batted away, which nobody would have... you know, criticize him for doing, because that's what you would have expected. Because listen, this is done.
We sort of accepted a couple of weeks ago, it was the least worst option. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't right. But you know what, I'd sooner not be talking about it than dragging it out and sort of arguing the fires and the fire to get. And it had sort of, it was dead. The conversation was largely dead. It was sort of, it was maybe simmering a wee bit, but wasn't hitting the headlines. And then,
For whatever reason, maybe he just forgot the cameras were on or just thought he was, I don't know, it's inexplicability just through a sort of bucket of petrol and the whole thing again and up she flew. And it was the inaccuracies of it that I was quite taken with, never mind the language and the way it provoked the reaction that it did.
Now, it would have been preferred maybe Dublin Gerbrand had maybe come out and just sort of...
had a done an interview on the side of a picture there's no home club or something a legal a legal uh response didn't set the right tone either for me i would have liked to see i would like to hear jeb brown is quite capable of talking he's quite entitled to sat in front of a camera and just explain it i think that's more personable and the personal tone of the thing would leave but that that been said he felt that was the a safer way to do it um
I think it begs a couple of questions, and I heard Jim Galvin speaking during the week on this. I don't know if you picked it up. He's on off the ball, yeah.
He was, and he was quite, as you would expect, quite analytical on it and quite correct in the way he sort of broke it down in the way that the assumptions that you have to make, because this is where you get into the technicalities of these things. Without labouring the point, there's a serious misstep has been done in one place or another.
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Chapter 4: How does the podcast address listener questions?
That's what will happen.
I think and what I haven't heard a lot of this and maybe it's been discussed in GA Corridors, but I think because of a couple of things that have changed dramatically in the last, just say five years, the profile of the game, the money that's been spent, the input and investment by so many stakeholders into the game, that the cost of making mistakes in any regard is very high.
Much higher than it would have been in your time, Pat. There was loads of time. So the cost of a mistake is much higher. And the penalties, as we've seen in So making the right decisions comes at a premium now. But also then as well, the condensed nature of the season and that the time, there's such a short space of time between games and the third leg to the stool is the pace of the media, Mike.
That things move so quick, for better or worse, that if you don't make decisions quickly, if you leave a vacuum, it gets filled by the likes of ourselves and rumor mills and all the rest. And then it just becomes wildfire. And what you find is you're reacting to a social media commentary as opposed to the issue itself. What's the way the wind blowing on Twitter or Facebook? And then we'll react.
So there is a need now, I think, for what's the equivalent in rugby, like a citing commission or something? Yeah, absolutely. that can be pulled together, have a mandate on a Monday morning, whatever might have come up and say, irrespective of the referee's report, that they can look at issues that need to be dealt with there and then.
And they have got governance specifically for the inter-county game. Forget about the rest of it. We have to deal with the inter-county game as a separate entity, as we have done with other rules. that get elevated. Like with Hawkeye and different things that are allocated. So there's other things that are allocated just to the inter-county game. This is, I think there's time now is needed.
And if anything, over the last number of weeks, issues like this could be dealt with much better, much quicker, much better. And by professional people, be it lawyers, legal eagles, people like Jack Anderson that writes in the examiner, people who are really good at this sort of stuff can sit and make decisions in real time with
this information they had and nip it in the bud as opposed to this protracted process that we have with an archaic disciplinary system, you know. And if that came out of all of this, that wouldn't be the worst outcome either, you know.
One quick question for you, Pat, and it's something I've always wondered because you've brought this place up a few times. Where's Ballymagash? They killed the Scully. It was because it was the famous fictitious place that we used in Hall's Pictorial Weekly. You wouldn't even remember. Oh, my mother and father would have talked about it, yeah. It was in Halls Pictorial Weekly.
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Chapter 5: What are the challenges faced by lower-ranked GAA teams?
And it's important to note that those two big games...
lose and you're gone and you look at the games in 2B so you have Monaghan who've been heroic in defeat in the championship to date against the Roscommon team who like had all the plaudits and it's one of those would I be betting on it absolutely not if Monaghan can produce the heroics that they gave for second halves in the last couple of matches then they'll give Roscommon a game can Roscommon regain the mojo that they showed in the Connacht so that's a big one the
Kerry Kildare, like, I saw an article in one of the Kildare newspapers where the delegates at the county board, I see, were quite critical of the performance of the senior football team under Brian Flanagan and how they've been going from three to two and back again and disappointing. Certainly, Kildare have been a major, major disappointment. You expect them
Kerry I swear to God I've never seen such a low key build up to a match because the big problem with Kerry and there's certainly not a conference in Kerry anymore because no one knows what's happening with the injuries and in fairness there's no word coming out of the camp so The injury crisis is a major crisis. That's why if that doesn't clear up, Kerry won't be winning the All-Ireland.
No, I did. Charlie O'Shea has been missing for the last couple of weeks in the steam room at the Rockland Hotel.
Maybe he's just inviting you to Paddy's because you're telling everything he tells you on a Tuesday afternoon.
He appeared on Sunday evening earlier and he was in great form. The boot was gone. He was in great form. Now, we talked about everything, sex, drugs, rock and roll and the fucking state of the economy. We never mentioned, but I just thought, Jesus' body language was good. But like, it's a huge one. Can he lose and that's it, you know? Derry meat? What?
I mean, meat with all the heroics from last year and all the hype from this year, their season could fall completely flat. It would be a disaster, Pat, for either county to lose. And I know Derry have been...
underperforming and being very poor but there's something about Derry at home when you start to say okay me beat them in the first round of the league but like this is like so there's games there like I said I fancy Kerry to beat Kildare you'd have to you'd slightly fancy Roscom and of course you'd I would slightly I would give a slight
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Chapter 6: What insights do the panelists share from their recent experiences?
No way. I can outshine anyone in talking. I enjoy talking, but I enjoy the fun and banter and the crack. And a podcast allows you that. I mean, the first couple of years working with the Sunday game were really, really enjoyable. They were good fun. There was no constraints and there was no limits and there was no like there was no script as such.
Michael left you off and you went on, like I said, on that roller coaster ride. And we didn't know where we were going because there was no set topics, there was no set questions, you just, away you went. And in the latter years, RT, no different than a lot of the other TV stations, it's scripted, it's PC, it's time constraints, and it's basically short, quick sound bites.
And it's not good television, I don't give a shit. That's why... The majority of people like listening. It's only recently I've got into podcasts, but like podcasts, the amount of people that listen to these podcasts is absolutely huge. And like at the end of the day, they want a bit of fun. They want a bit of crack. Yes, they want to know why a team won and why a team lost.
And yes, they want to know that you have some stats and whatever. But a bit of crack, a bit of yarns, a bit of story. That's what it's all about. And I think I talked to that before. We talked about it before when...
rt decided they didn't want any of these celebrity fucking pundits uh and uh like and they wanted to go at the sky route and the sky route was serious analysis but like once the one sky once rt decided not to go to the celebrity pundit route guess what sky did they went to the celebrity pundit so the rykeens and these are now the celebrity pundits on sky but no i i love this podcast i
Well, like I said, anytime you can just mosey into the kitchen table and just talk into the screen and shoot the breeze for ages. And it's great fun. I love it. But I didn't realize, I swear to God, probably in recent weeks, but certainly right up last week, I just couldn't believe, Jesus, are you listening to this?
The amount of people that will listen to the podcast and just really enjoying it and to know that. I really believe in it. I believe in this podcast. I think it's good crack. It's good fun. There's no agendas. It's a good mixture as well because we're three different characters. You and Dick could be very similar, would you not?
But at the end of the day, the bottom line is sport is an escape valve. Sport is an escape from reality. It's an escape from the humdrum and the troubles of ordinary life and the everyday trials and strains and whatever. And sport is an escape valve. A podcast is an escape valve. A sporting podcast, as this is, is an escape valve.
And we are trying to give people an hour or an hour and 10 minutes of a bit of fun and a bit of crack and a bit of escape from reality.
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Chapter 7: How does the GAA's disciplinary system impact teams?
Should we, like you take this weekend, right? Why is all the Camogie Championship games on this weekend? All the ladies football games are on this weekend. All the football championship games are on this weekend. It's a crazy schedule.
So why can't we have inter-county hurling for one period of the year with Kamoke, inter-county hurling for the other half of the year with ladies football and flip them around and flip around the club structures. And I know people say, dual club, dual club, dual club. Yeah, I get that. And the pressure on Galway and the pressure on Garth. But we haven't problem.
with maximising our high-profile games and having a proper structure. And like Dick alluded to, we now have a summer where basically there's no one playing. Pat, if you, your suggestion about half, what is it, inter-county hurling in the first half of the year and inter-county football in the second and then flip them, you would end up playing inter-county football
from July to December of that year and then going straight into inter-county football again for the following year if that's the case yeah possibly I'm just saying it's look he did the brainstorming stage we'll give him a pass on that it's the general idea look the point I'm trying to say it's the it's a framework and you walk within that framework but I just think we're just not getting it right at the moment so structures but more high profile games to drive our sport Dick same one for you
It has to be something different. Okay. This might sound a bit... There is need for not a committee, but a structure in place for financial oversight and governance. If you think the GA is an amateur organization, it's non-professional, it should be egalitarian, it's anything but because the strong continue to get strong and the weak have to try and beat off crumbs, try and get up.
There has to be a better way if we're going to try and... In a world of professional sport that we're surrounded by and trying to compete against, you know, there's something very special and worth nurturing and protecting in what the G is. Because it's just such a unique thing in the world of sport, not just in an Irish context, right?
But to protect that, you have to ensure that the teams participating in the counties have a fighting chance to compete and thrive and sustain. And ultimately things cost money. People don't like to talk about money, but the reality is things cost money to do that. So we have to have a way that just the top teams can't just go and throw money. That we do every year.
We hear about people going on fundraising campaigns to America and a big donor comes in and next thing it just floats up the team and they're going on extra training and training camps that other teams just can't do. That's not fair. That's not equitable. If you look at American sports, I was watching Moneyball. You know Moneyball, great show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant show. Billy Bean.
Billy Bean. Billy Bean. But you look at America in so grotesque and elitist in so many ways, but even the professional sports, they have a system there now that allows balance in terms of the share and in terms of budget and teams. And even the draft system keeps it balanced. The strong just can't keep getting stronger and move away. Otherwise, you just have...
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Chapter 8: What changes do the panelists suggest for improving GAA structures?
And Cleveland wouldn't have been going well for a long time, but would have been a very strong tradition. But they're going well. A good friend of mine, Gerard, shout out to Gerard, has taken them all. So there's a bit of crack locally with our own sort of peer group and all the rest. We had a huge crowd. Jeez, the cars were parked outside the ground. Massive. Lovely Sunday evening.
Took the boys over from on, and they were giving out to the drag move. And I said, here, come on. But like, it was a good game, tight game. Cleveland won it by a point, but that wasn't the funny thing. At halftime, right, all the subs were out. And I'm not joking you. I'd say if there was one pulled hamstring, there must have been 10. All they were interested in was trying to kick two pointers.
And one afternoon or another, I'm not joking, I don't think any of them got it, but you could see everything. They were tall, they were fat, they were short, they were fit. There was everything for every sub. We were just sitting watching them trying to take bets. And everyone was watching them. The new interest, nothing else, lining up to try and drive this Paul 40. None of them could do it.
It was absolutely priceless what it was.
It's hard being at the old halftime show. Junior football. I remember being a sub down in Parc y Cuibh one day and Owen Kelly from Lusmys, a nephew of John Troy, I said to him, here, we'll just let on that we've never hurled before. So we were throwing up the ball like this and doing it like we'd never played Hurling before. It's just thinking like this.
If anyone is looking at us here now, they're thinking, who are these absolute homers on the pitch? And what are they doing wearing off-league gear? Pat, anything in particular you can remember? Honestly, there must be a million things. And I think of them the minute we come off here today. And I can't think because it's been hilarious. I don't... I just don't know.
Most of them can't even be told to an ear, I'd say. I can't remember. I swear to God, lads, it's the first ever time that I'm caught for an answer. I have you now. And it's not, because I hadn't heard this before and I thought it was brilliant. And some of our listeners mightn't have heard it either.
Will you just quickly tell the story, and it's obviously off the pitch, about when you were training ridiculously hard with the wire and you were working long hours in the pub and you got...
no please Pat please because it's already it's on it's on the show from the Ireland final last year with Joe and Eddie and Milan and Brodie but some people mightn't have heard it if you were just please because my wife has no interest in the GAA and I told her this story I played this story for her and she absolutely creased herself laughing okay so Rosali Rosali I apologise staring at him now from across the table
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