When Mack Hansen and the entire Connacht rugby squad were sentenced to media training, it was a deflating moment for sports media. But why should you care about the petty gripes of journalists? (6:17)

Sinead O’Carroll and Gavin Cooney make the case that a more natural, authentic athlete makes for a better interviewee, which in turn enhances everybody’s enjoyment of their favourite sports. (14:32)

Sinead explains the big difference between media training and risk avoidance training. Far too many professional sports teams, she argues, behave in public like scandal-riven corporations trying to bore their way out of trouble. (16:12)

Sinead espouses a more grown-up relationship between the media and sports people, while Gavin lists some of the perils of talking to the press. He details how he once conducted an interview which led to international headlines about an Irish rugby star suffering from a potato addiction. Gav tells more stories from the front line, where PR handlers seek to control access and shape the narrative.(24:50)

Get in touch with us: [email protected] and [email protected] 

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Who is Rory Gallagher? Why is he seen as such a good Gaelic football coach? Why is he not managing one of the top county sides in Ireland? And why did Naas GAA club reconsider a decision to appoint the Ulster man to the management team of their senior football squad?

Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll break down this week’s big GAA story.

The pair also discuss how the club game has reached quasi-professional levels and ponder where it could go next. Are the media partly responsible for a culture where winners are glorified while others are ignored? How far are clubs and county teams now willing to go in pursuit of silverware? What should be the true measure of success for a GAA club?

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Gavin and Sinéad review the year by picking the moments from 2024 they believe they’ll still be talking about in 20 years.

There’s naturally tales and reflections of Ireland’s many Olympic glories, but also a look back on couple of heartbreaks. Gavin also talks about a month on German trains, with a little bit of Euro 2024 football thrown in.

There’s also why Rory McIlroy’s ongoing major heartbreak is effectively redeeming the whole of professional golf, why Manchester City have never been so interesting, and how Jurgen Klopp’s bombshell announcement was the final proof he got Everything Right.

Thanks for supporting the podcast through 2024, we will be back with weekly episodes from the first Tuesday of January. Get in touch: [email protected] and [email protected].

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This week’s episode is all about sports books, as Sinéad quizzes Gavin about the process of co-writing The Racket with Conor Niland, which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award for 2024.

They delve into how the book came about and how the structure of the book was decided upon, along with discussing the process of writing it.

Gavin and Sinéad also pick their favourite sports books and offer some left-field recommendations.

You can get in touch with the show by emailing [email protected] and [email protected]. Happy Christmas!

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On this week’s show, Gavin and Sinéad are joined by The 42's GAA correspondent Declan Bogue to get into the details of Revenue’s audit of GAA county boards.

Why are Revenue targeting the GAA, and what specifically are they looking at? Is this matter likely to extend to under-the-table payments to managers?

How seriously is this being taken by the GAA at central level, and how worried are the various county boards? And what are the best and worst-case scenario outcomes - could the ramifications of this audit change the GAA forever?

Get in touch - [email protected] and [email protected]

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On this week’s show, Gavin and Sinéad explore the controversy around the Premier League’s Rainbow Laces campaign, a long-running visibility and inclusivity campaign in support of the LGBTQ+ community which two Premier League captains and the Manchester United team chose not to support fully last week.

Is the campaign doing more harm than good? Why is the men’s football so hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, where the women’s game is much more inclusive? Is it unfair to focus on individual footballers, when the sport as a whole does not stand up for the values it claims to hold? Is this story indicative of a wider retreat and regression on LGTBQ+ issues? And, ultimately, can sport really be the inclusive force for progressive values we sometimes like to think it can be?

Get in touch - [email protected] and [email protected]

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Is Gerry Hutch an exponent of sportswashing? Are Sinn Fein the FAI of politics, to Fianna Fáil’s GAA? And why do all count centres look like Ireland circa 1992?

Gav, a “humble sports correspondent”, puts these and other questions to Sinead, who had led The Journal’s coverage of GE24, and must therefore be in a good place to offer some general election player ratings for the party leaders, and a lot more insight besides to a man who has noted an increased sportification of how politics is covered in the media.

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On Friday, a jury found that Conor McGregor sexually assaulted Nikita Hand in a Dublin hotel in 2018.

Gavin and Sinéad discuss the case on today’s show, and some of the reasons why the jury may have come to their decision. They also discuss the likelihood of McGregor being granted an appeal, and salute the astonishing strength and bravery of Nikita Hand.

They also chart McGregor’s rise and fall: why did he become so popular in Ireland in the first place? And when did that popularity first begin to wane?

Plus, why did McGregor gravitate to politics, and does this case truly end the possibility of him running for president?

Get in touch - email [email protected] and [email protected]

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Gavin and Sinead discuss what happens when a totemic leader reaches the end.

Should they be kept close to the team, or even be given a bespoke role like Johnny Sexton? Or is a clean break as in the case of Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp or Bill Shankly preferable?

Could Sexton be inhibiting the next wave of Irish out-halves, in the same manner that Alex Ferguson’s lingering presence at Old Trafford weighed heavily on successive managers?

Or is it totally different for a player, and would Ireland be mad not to keep Sexon’s rugby brain in house?

The pair debate the merits and otherwise of a dominant, era-defining character having a say in the next era. And they wonder what a young Sexton would say if faced with a similar set of circumstances when it was time for him to make the Ireland 10 jersey his own.

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Was Katie Taylor the just winner of last night’s fight for the ages with Amanda Serrano?

Was the majesty of Taylor-Serrano II diminished by its staging as part of a farcical event featuring Jake Paul and Mike Tyson?

Was the fight so good as to deem such concerns irrelevant?

Might Netflix now seek to stage Taylor-Serrano III as a headlining event, minus the novelty sideshow involving a YouTube personality and boxer who hit his peak 38 years ago?

These questions and more are answered by Gavan Casey, our man in Dallas, who caught up with Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll this afternoon.

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