Evan Fanning and Sunday Independent columnist Declan Lynch joined Adrian Barry on Off The Ball to review Sunday's papers today, and as the Premier League returned, it dominated much of the coverage.
The attention turned to the fact that while there had been a huge amount of coverage, it focused perhaps on the wrong elements of the return of football. Lynch pointed out that there was a spread dedicated to an interview with Liverpool player Adam Lallana, which revealed almost nothing and had very little to add on the topic of their season, or football in general.
That turned to a discussion on the way that sports are covered these days, with McGrath urging journalists to be the ones who help to change it, to not bother interview players who they know will spend most of their time trying desperately to say nothing. While the conversation focused on Lallana (who bore the brunt of the abuse), the point in general was applied to all sports stars, who rarely give a candid or revealing interview.
Ahead of the All-Ireland semi-final between Waterford and Kilkenny, Lynch turned his attention to a couple of pieces on the relationship between McGrath and the players on his panel from De La Salle, who he would be very familiar with having coached them more or less all the way up. In particular, there was a discussion on the messages sewed on to the shirts of those players as they looked to go for back to back Harty Cup triumphs.
Finally, the papers also had plenty of follow up coverage on last week's huge doping expose, and ahead of the World Championships, there has been reaction from officials, who are hitting back against the allegations and claiming that their sport is being unfairly targeted.
You can listen to the full paper review below:
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