On Off The Ball's Sunday Paper Review, Ryle Nugent and Tommy Martin joined Joe Molloy to consider who should and should not be using their public platform to comment on the official protocol regarding the resumption of sport amid the coronavirus crisis.
In last weekend's Sunday Independent, columnist Colm O'Rourke expressed his frustration with the government's protocol regarding the planned resumption of sport. As far as the former Meath footballer was concerned, the country's youth had already suffered long enough without the GAA.
During Off The Ball's Sunday Paper Review this weekend, it was found that O'Rourke's fellow Sunday Game pundit Pat Spillane holds a similar outlook. "Frankly, I'm pissed off," his column in The Sunday World read. "We've become too safe and cagey and it's time the GAA opened the pitches and let kids play again."
It begged the following question: Should everyone be entitled to comment on a serious issue regarding the health and well-being of the population even if they are not qualified to do so?
RTÉ analyst Pat Spillane. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile"Everybody has the right to an opinion," suggested the show's host Joe Molloy regarding Pat Spillane's inflammatory column, "and we should of course be questioning what happens in terms of what the government are doing. My point on this is that we're increasingly pointing to numbers. 'Look at this, look how low the numbers are.' As if that has all happened independent of the measures that we've all taken.
"So, when I see lines in his piece like, "we've become too safe and cagey," that's a big statement to make and this whole thing could get out of control in no time. It is very easy to say [as Spillane does] that we should throw open the gates to our youngsters, but if you're going to make that statement then I think your piece has to go into the many complicated logistics. This piece doesn't do that."
As sport tentatively resumes the world over usually in vastly different circumstances than usual, there is undoubtedly a desperation among certain swathes of Irish society to see similar action taken here. Although he may reflect what many people think, is it wise that the former Kerry footballer uses his public platform to air such thoughts when they are contrary to official protocol?
"That line, "throw open the gates," it is such an easy line columnist's use," argued Tommy Martin. "It is low-stakes punditry where you can just write it and it will make a good headline and a certain amount of people will go, 'Yeah, he's damned right isn't he?'
"My instinct was to ask whether we should really be taking public health advice from Pat Spillane now? Lines like, 'we've gotten too cagey and careful,' I mean, we've just had the biggest public health pandemic crisis in a century. It's OK being a bit cagey."
15 March 2020; A general view of Croke Park Stadium. Photo by SPORTSFILEQuick to confirm that he does not share Pat Spillane's outlook, Ryle Nugent was nevertheless wary of adopting an outlook whereby people were told to say nothing.
"Do I think we should shut down people even taking these easy shots," he asked, "and I'm sure the GAA would say it is not helpful him making these points, but does that mean people shouldn't be entitled to their view? I don't think we can get into that territory.
"Let people say what they want and judge it on the merits as you see it."
A wide-ranging discussion on the Sunday Paper Review, you can watch it back in its entirety here.
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