Joe Duffy surprised Kieran Cuddihy with a good luck message on Friday night's Late Late Show, while the new Liveline presenter has said the reaction to his gig has been "almost life-affirming".
In October, the Newstalk presenter was announced to be taking over the reigns at Liveline from Duffy, following the legendary broadcaster's retirement last June.
Appearing on Friday's Late Late Show, Cuddihy said of the reaction to his appointment: "It's been great, when you work in this industry, or any industry, and someone offers you a new job, your mind turns to practicalities to a degree.
"It's only when people stop you in the street, random people, they come up and it's actually been really nice. It's almost life-affirming when people, total strangers, tell you how delighted they are."
The Kilkenny man joked about what listeners can expect: "There's no point in having a national platform if you can't abuse it for your own ends.
"I will be talking about Kilkenny hurling, I will be talking about club hurling, I will be talking about coaching under 10s camogie and under 12s hurling, I'll be talking about commuting from Kilkenny, listening to hurling podcasts ... all of that and more!"
The radio presenter also told an anecdote about a previous job that didn't end so well.
"I trained as a solicitor and then in 2009, people remember what the country was like then, when I qualified I went to Canada," he said. "I was working for a company building apartment blocks during the World Cup. We got into work one morning and we turned straight back around and went into an early house to watch the semi-finals.
"Our problem wasn't that - our problem was we got greedy. You've a few drinks and your confidence gets up. It gets to 5 o'clock and we thought we should ring Enrique to clock us out of work again. And one of the lads says, let's wait and we'll get someone to clock us out in a few hours and we'll get overtime.
"As soon as you're on overtime there's a red flag beside your name, and sure enough our boss took a look and found out nothing had been done and we were duly fired.
"I hope not to be fired from the next job quite as quickly."
As the interview wrapped up, host Patrick Kielty surprised a clearly delighted Cuddihy with a pre-recorded message from his Liveline predecessor.
Duffy said to Cuddihy: "Hello, good afternoon and you're very welcome to… Kieran Cuddihy! Kieran! Don’t talk to Joe, now, just listen to Joe! Will you please just listen to Joe?
"Remember, the first 27 years are the hardest. If the phone isn't ringing you're doing something wrong and if it is ringing, you're doing something really wrong.
"I've heard great feedback already from my ex-colleagues in RTÉ about your enthusiasm, your ability, your intelligence, and, by the way, your good looks - and that's just from the fellas! The women think you’re gorgeous as well.
"So best of luck old pal, you’ll be brilliant. And in the great tradition of Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny, Marian, the great great broadcasters – break a leg old pal, break a leg, you’ll be brilliant!"
The Late Late Show, Friday nights at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
