Indo Sport
Bits & Bobs | Leo Cullen doubles down | Liverpool's endless rebuild | Athletes' silent struggles | Leaving Cert memories
29 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What insights do Ronan, Conan, and Will share about the upcoming bank holiday weekend?
This is an Irish independent podcast.
Bits and Bobs here for you heading into this bank holiday weekend. Ronan here, Conin to the left of me. Hello. Will to the right. Hello. How we doing lads?
Doing good. We made it. Made it to the end of the week.
One week down the sands, John Molloy. Who?
I'd even forgotten he existed, that such has been the seamless nature of this week.
What are we doing, is the real question. Yeah, we've got plenty to be getting on with, to be fair.
Yeah, it was a busy week. The Barney and Killarney. The Barney and Killarney. I think I came up with that. I think you did. I saw it in the headlines, like, that's clever. Yeah, that's mine. So hands off anyone out there who... It's top class producing. That is good, yeah.
Kilkenny dumped out. Can't uncover that on Monday. Leinster, Bordeaux. Just chatting to you earlier, that went the way people thought it would.
Maybe not the scale of the defeat, but of all the kind of narratives you put, you know, in the Simpsons movie when Rainier Wolf cost us like an Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of, and he's like, we have option A, B, C, D and E. I think one of the ones that you would have pushed forward as a potentially likely outcome was it Bordeaux exposing Leinster's form line this season, which is kind of how it played out.
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Chapter 2: What are the implications of Leo Cullen's comments on Leinster's performance?
How did they do against Ross Conlon? They're back in the All-Ireland race. People were ridiculing me and lampooning me when I said it, but I'm feeling somewhat vindicated. You're itchy off. Yeah, I was written off. I was written off, exactly.
Yeah.
So those, Kerry Turone in that final and Westmead Cavan both thrown in at 5pm. Westmead Cavan's on GA plus. Kerry Turone's on TG Car before the big one. Armagh Derry at 7.15 on GA plus. There is a small matter of the Champions League final. We did preview that yesterday and we'll chat about it shortly. That's on RTE, Premier Sports and TNT.
And then Leinster looking to bounce back from their humbling defeat in Bilbao last week. They take on the Lions. at half seven in that other UFC quarterfinal. Then Western Conference Finals has gone to a game seven, Will. Overnight, Saturday into Sunday, the Spurs against the Oklahoma City Thunders to decide who's going to meet those New York Knicks in the NBA Finals.
Yeah, it's funny because game one was an absolute cracker. Did it go to double overtime? It definitely went to overtime anyway. All the games since then have been blowouts. Whoever's been at home have just kind of run roughshod. So hoping at least we get
you know a great finale because it deserves it because I think they are the two best teams obviously New York in the final I think it throws in at midnight or tips off at midnight which isn't like palatable it's palatable so I am toying with the idea of potentially staying up and watching it because it is the weekend and it's Bank Holiday weekend I can catch up with some sleep potentially over the forthcoming days thereafter but
Definitely, if you're in the market for any NBA match at all, if your interest is peak fire chatting Wednesday, this is the one I would encourage you to tune in for that very reason. Plenty of time to catch up on your sleep. The two betting favorites for the overall Larry O'Brien trophy. So that should be a good one.
We moved from Larry to Laurie in the Laurie Mark. Seamus, Joe wouldn't have been able to do that, I don't think. That's on Sunday, long for the later. We did painstakingly go through when this game is on, who's in it, before we started. How to pronounce it. Yeah, it was all on the table before we hit record. So that is on Sunday, as is Clare versus Galway in the All-Ireland under-20 hurling game.
Championship final, the Women's FA Cup final takes place. That's on TNT between Brighton and Man City. Dublin, Louth, meet again. This time it's personal, maybe. That's in the All-Ireland Series. As is Man in Mayo, the Andy Morin Derby and also a fortnight from the World Cup. If you want to see some rotations, you want to get a little taste for it.
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Chapter 3: How do the athletes navigate their silent struggles in sports?
Yeah, like what's the tipping point by which a game will either take place or not take place? Like obviously at the moment it's definitely taking place. The game isn't until September. So I don't know at which point, like if it wasn't to take place, when is that decision made necessarily?
Yeah, it was something which Ireland coach Hamer Halgrimson was asked in advance of the game and he broached it briefly in last night's press conference.
If I would have picked, then I would have liked to protest in the second half when we would like to kill the game down. But no, everybody has a right to protest. Just thinking about the football side, it's not fun for us watching a game that needs to be stopped again and again. But yeah, we respect. We respect the protest.
Yeah, just as we were saying there, Conor, it happens gradually and suddenly that, like an increasingly palpable sense that realistically, practically the game can't happen because protests like this would derail it, but that it won't happen for reasons kind of above that anyway.
I'm actually sort of a little bit surprised that there's not more... sort of a feeling behind playing the game from people who want to protest, because as much as a boycott would send out a message, I think actually the game going ahead would give you the opportunity for a bit more international visibility, for completely grinding the game to a halt.
I'm not advocating for this, but I'm saying that this is the opportunity that you have then with the game going ahead, something as effective as 40,000 Palestinian flags flying in the Aviva. That would be pictured all over the world. That would be more effective than tennis balls going onto the pitch. That would be a massive opportunity there. It's a very tough one.
For me, Israel should be banned if UEFA aren't going to do that. I'm not sure what the best play is for Ireland. And it's a difficult one for the players to be in because from a football point of view, if they don't play, and Hal Grimson sort of said it, Israel win in that they get six points. It's not as small as that, but they also get no headaches.
They actually get a bit of sympathy in some quarters of the world then because they've been frozen out. And if they do play, granted, I get all the arguments of legitimizing things and life going on. But there's also an opportunity to protest, to wave flags, to unfurl banners. And I know Ireland are also worried about fines and whatever else to come with it.
But that's also the same situation with them not playing the match at all. So in a way, if you're actually looking to make a message, and I'm not 100% in either direction, but I do really see the opportunity of the game going ahead as well for people who want to...
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Chapter 4: What memories do the hosts share about their Leaving Cert experiences?
Miami? Miami. Installed its final sod role on the pitch for the World Cup. Saudi Arabia versus Uruguay will be the first teams to play there on June the 15th. Do you know who the Uruguay manager is? It's... Bielsa.
Yeah, I can picture him. I was going to say Juan Malillo. He's the one who pops up a lot of places. He's the Marseille manager. He's sitting in the bucket again. Yeah, he's a good skin to have in the World Cup.
Yeah, but if you look at this pitch, I wouldn't be too thrilled about playing on it.
You can turn your screen around to me and I can comment in real time. Well, you can describe it to the listeners.
I can describe it to the listeners. Look how close the grass is to this very hard underlay.
Yeah. That doesn't seem safe. It looks like a carpet. It's at the end line. That's the pitch. Yeah, but it's at the end line right in front of it. It seems to be, yeah, where a corner would be taken.
Yeah, yeah.
This is going to be the... Just off the corner of Flight, there's like a harsh concrete exterior exposed.
And the quote tweet I saw was, I ruptured my ACL just looking at this. I don't know. There's a lot being speculated about how this World Cup is going to go. We haven't probably talked enough about the playing surfaces because they will be primarily NFL pitches. And we see the nature of injuries that are incurred there. You wouldn't be surprised.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Liverpool face in their ongoing rebuild?
finding something from somewhere. They were stealing games, for want of a better word. And there was a feeling that it would drop off. I remember thinking, God, once they get it together, everybody else is in trouble because they're already getting points and they're not playing well. But then I suppose you just continue those performances and then never got back to any level.
There wasn't one time during the season where it was like, okay, they've got it together now. It was like they just did enough all season to... come fifth like were they ever in the top three apart from that first five games like they just dropped off and stayed at that level maybe a lot of that is tied to Jota I don't know but I think the feeling is and I might be wrong here but
that it got so bad and so many issues came out of it that it felt like this wasn't just a team struggling with the loss of their friend. It was just other football problems as well.
I think if they had started the season like they kind of hit in mid-season, maybe it would have been a much bigger talking point. If they hadn't won the first five, if they had that sticky patch right out the gate, maybe it would have been the major talking point straight away. Like, oh, how could we have ever expected them to hit the ground running or have a good season?
But the fact that they kind of won early even though they were playing poorly I agree but the fact that they've got those points on the board kind of put that to the back burner almost and then by the time they started kind of having that falter more of the football topics had reared their heads maybe yeah well thanks for your email Gavin we'll have more just after this
So we'll move to Gaelic football now. It could hardly have been a better scene setter, Conin, for the new GIA structure with fairly pulsating, in large part, provincial finals straight into those provincial finalists getting upset. You've got Kerry losing. You've got Roscommon being beaten by Tyrone. Just a few thrilling matches and obviously the Barney and Killarney that we touched on.
So your early exit survey on this new structure, it feels like it's ever-changing.
Oh, I think this is a good structure. It's better than the groups, anyway. I think it's a jeopardy right at the gap of meaningful matches, even when you still have one more chance. The reality is, now somebody who's maybe not as familiar with the structures just yet, just texts me something randomly after a tournament. It's been like, Ross Common will still make the quarterfinals.
Well, not if they draw Kerry next. Or any of those big teams. This is the top 16 as well. There is... there isn't a lot of gimmies that you're going to get in this structure anymore. So if you get a bad draw and it is luck of the draw and it is a home and away, you're out. It really is back to sort of classic GA championship. They had this structure in Derry for years and already had it in
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