Indo Sport
Bits & Bobs | A new friend joins the show | Andy Farrell's next move | Gambling & sport
27 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: Who is Sarah Mulkerrins and what is her background?
This is an Irish Independent Podcast. I have a shocking kind of story to bring to the listeners. Oh, wow. Yeah. So do you know Sarah Mulkerrins? I do. Yeah.
Familiar with her work.
BBC Northern Ireland, GAA coverage in particular. So good at that. I mean, Ulster final day on BBC is kind of just a kind of day of colour on the Beeb. It's brilliant. BBC radio and television, you know, big career. You'll see her interviewing the England manager on BBC One. You know, Gary Lineker throwing down to Sir Mel Kearns. So from Galway, doing us proud. I have thought a good person.
And then last year, you might remember, we discussed a Daily Telegraph list of the 10 greatest... How could I forget it? Mark Poo, guys. How could I forget it? I haven't stopped thinking about it since. The 10 greatest TV broadcasters of all time. And Mark Pugach was in there. Now, I think Sue Barker wasn't.
Oh, it was after the fact that there was three or four egregious submissions. Yeah, Hazel Irvine. What's that guy? John Inverdale was not in either. John Inverdale. No, he had a few mishaps. As we discussed at the time, he had a few mishaps that maybe were disqualifying in some people's eyes. Okay. But come on, everyone deserves a second chance.
You have to look at the broad picture. You know, Doyen. So that's fine. I moved on with my life. And then I got an email. Sarah Mulcairns pops up in my inbox. And defending Mark Pugach, viciously attacking me, you know, it was a real, the mask had slipped.
Viciously attacking us, I would say, as a show. It was a nasty rebuke, I would actually say, of our professionalism in some ways.
And so I sort of said, Sarah, who do you think you are? You know, who do you think you are? Respectfully. Respectfully. And I said, if you think you could do better than me and Will, like ever, name the date, come on in. Sarah Mulcairns, welcome.
I'm ready. I'm ready. I've got my case.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Sarah share about the Winter Olympics?
IRFU expected to make counteroffer. David Humphries has been speaking with Farrell's representatives.
him and his family understood to be very happy in Dublin but when asked about his future Farrell has chosen to keep things vague and this is more just speculation I suppose but it's interesting part of the allure of Saracen's would be working with Owen you know as he kind of finishes up as a player and maybe moves into coaching
Sarri's released a statement Andy Farrell has not discussed his future with anyone on the board or ownership group of Saracens we can categorically categorically state despite numerous reports to the country in the press no offer has been made to Andy the misguided reporting is disrespectful to Brennan Venter or DOR given Andy's close relationship with Saracens we'll look forward to welcoming him to games once the Six Nations has concluded so pretty strong nothing to see here from Sarri's
I don't know.
Well, the last club we should be trusting on their official word is Saracens, given their history. And yes, I went over to Tom Turner, our League of League on Ask, could I say that on air, given their salary cap breaches in the past. But yeah, as the statement says, the reason they don't need to ask Andy Farrell is because he has representatives as well.
The statement says, oh, we never talked to Andy Farrell. It never says we never talked to Andy's representatives. You don't have to offer a contract to discuss a contract. The wording of the statement, I think, leaves grey areas. Rudd wasn't claiming it was a done deal and he was out the door either.
I think people were sending that statement around as some sort of like, oh, that means, oh, if Saracen said it, there can't be any smoke there. But it does show that there's kind of like moving kind of musical chairs already. When it was announced in 2018 that Joe was leaving and Farrell was taking over, it was like November 2018, which would be November of this year.
So that's not that far off in terms of having to kind of start getting ducks in a row. We discussed yesterday, the left wing, myself and Rudd, would it just be a natural time, win or lose, no matter how well Ireland do at a World Cup, that two cycles feels about right for any coach, no matter how good you are?
you run the risk going into years 9, 10, 11, 12, notwithstanding the four years he put in as an assistant prior to that, that it might just be a natural time for a break. Like, that sounds like a very attractive offer to go with the Saracens. He is from England. He spent a lot of time there. Owen is there, kind of bringing his son along as a coach.
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Chapter 3: What rumors are circulating about Andy Farrell's coaching future?
not easy at all I'm so sorry I love you guys so I was like fair play today for ringing that guy up and actually putting him on the spot yeah that's what we do here at the Irish Independence yeah you come for us you're getting the boss you're either going to get a phone call or you're going to be in studio we're back in one sec
Winter Olympics, everybody. Now, you, Will, said a week ago, Winter Olympics at Outstate is welcome. You indulged, overindulged. You were sick of it.
Specifically the curling. It had grown to become... It was like in The Simpsons when Mr Burns buys every TV station to find his lost bear, Bobo. Every time I turned on the TV, it was men's curling, women's curling, mixed curling. The matches go on for so long. Each stand is an eternity. I liked it at the start. And you give curling an inch... And they take a full stand.
It was just like... And the Brits love the curling.
The Brits, the Canadians, all the Canadians and the Canadian controversy. And Lever has a controversy with so dull with rock touching and double rock touching and stone touching. Sorry, Sarah, you might have been covering this at length. The BBC loves its curling, Sarah.
Loves the curling. Oh, yeah. Loves the curling. Well, there's metal hopes. And so if there's metal hopes, that's what's going to be picked to be on.
I did read that the, is it a stone? What's the thing made of?
Granite.
It's from Scotland.
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Chapter 4: How does gambling relate to sports in today's society?
Yeah, very true.
Scary. So what else do you do freelancing?
So I do golf with Five Live and TV.
That golf commentary on Five Live isn't your... I know. Do you ever go to the Masters?
I did the Masters the year Tiger won it. I know, I know. I was going to have you back now. I'm sorry. Yeah. But I'm not on the radio ticket. I kind of had a... I'm on the radio ticket for some events, but I kind of left and pursued a bit of TV stuff. So they've kind of filled. So I do some radio. So I'll be doing the players in a couple of weeks. Not there. We'll be doing it from Salford. Good.
Good. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah.
Around Master's time, we should just talk about what that week was like.
Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so I do kind of TV and radio for golf, do the athletics for TV. So we'll have World Indoors in a couple of weeks time as the first kind of athletics gig this year.
Do you have periods where it's like you have no work this month?
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