MNS’s favourite TV sports reviewer of the week is Pat Nugent from the Sunday Tribune. Take a bow Mr Nugent for your impeccable taste, and wise advice to the Irish nation that sees our humble Monday evening offering making it into your ‘one to watch’ box for the second time this season, and we’re still only six weeks old.
As far as we know, Pat isn’t related to Ryle, so there’s no favouritism going on there, and from his photo he looks a little bit like a younger Tony Ward, who of course is also in the employ of RTÉ, but again our vast team of researchers have been digging and can’t find any link between Pat and Tony.
So, it would seem that no influence has been brought to bear from our end to result in MNS appearing once again in the ‘one to watch’ box - so we simply say: thank you Pat.
As Pat rightly said, the Airtricity League is starting to get interesting, and the return of Roddy Collins to the MNS couch made this week’s programme a must see.
The Rodmeister divides opinion, but one thing is for sure, everyone has an opinion about him; and he has an opinion about everything.
My luck ran out over the weekend. Stephen Alkin had the bright idea of a Grand National Sweep, but was too busy to organise it, so Gavin Burke one of our RTÉ sports librarians took on the task of running the sweep.
Not the most onerous of tasks you’d probably agree, and yet the normally reliable Gavin managed to screw it up big time. Two MNS’ers, myself and James O’Toole, were given horses that weren’t even listed to run in the race.
Normally in that scenario Mr Ladbrokes, Boylesports, Paddy Power, William Hill et al would refund the bet, but Mr Burke works by different rules. The ‘tough luck lads’ rule.
Maybe it was a devious plot to nick a few bob off the naive MNS-ites who were under some kind of impression that if you bought into a sweep, your horse might actually be a runner in the race.
On the other hand, maybe the aforementioned Gavin Burke couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery. He’s normally ultra efficient so I think I’ll go with the devious plot storyline.
Incidentally, congratulations to Sean Leonard, brother of MNS team member Seamus, who brought far more glory to the family than his brother ever has by working on our production!
Sean was a member of the victorious Monaghan team who beat Longford 1-18 to 1-10 in the Allianz Hurling League Division 4 final at Kingspan Breffni Park last Saturday.
Sean was booked after 25 seconds, but managed to survive the game without getting sent off, and even chipped in with two points.
I can hear the howls of protest already: ‘What’s he doing mentioning stick ball in a soccer blog?’
The answer is twofold. Firstly Sean's brother Seamus is an important member of the MNS family and secondly it rounds off a great weekend for Monaghan, after United’s excellent 6-1 win away to Salthill Devon at the weekend.
Finally, a reminder once again that the rather excellent League of Ireland Football Show presented by Damien O’Meara on RTÉ Radio One Extra continues to entertain and inform every Monday at 6.30pm.
For the Luddites out there like me who find this new fangled digital radio business a bit difficult to get the head around, an easier way to listen to the programme is to go to the RTÉ website and listen to it there. It’s also downloadable from itunes I’m reliably informed.
