‘I was still very much involved with Offaly, so it shows how the times have changed’
Michael Duignan was very much a part of the Offaly All-Ireland winning team when he first started working for RTE. Here, in an extract from his autobiography ‘Life, Death & Hurling’ published in 2011, he recounts his early days as a player and pundit.
HAVING taken part in successive All-Ireland finals in 1994 and ’95, the Offaly team had a high profile at the time. Before one of those finals I was interviewed by Michael Lyster for RTÉ television and, afterwards, he asked me would I be interested in appearing on The
Sunday Game at some point in the future and I thought, why not? I didn’t think any more of it until I got a call ahead of the 1996 AllIreland final between Wexford and Limerick and was asked to cover the game alongside Michael and Ger Loughnane in the old gantry by the scoreboard above the Nally Stand as it was then. It shows how the times have changed as I was still very much involved with Offaly while Loughnane was the Clare manager. Now, RTÉ work off a panel of pundits and very rarely stray outside of that in terms of their main match analysis. Nowadays, a manager probably wouldn’t let you do it, but it didn’t even occur to me to seek permission.
I remember the day well. I wasn’t nervous in any way, but the noise from the crowd was deafening and I could only hear Michael through the cans I was wearing on my ears. Pat Horan, a clubmate of mine, was the referee that day and sent off Wexford’s Eamon Scallan in the first half and I had no problem commenting on it at half-time, although it was difficult to see how Scallan could have too many complaints anyway, given what happened in that incident. Of course, I would have much preferred to be out on the field playing, as I had been the two previous years, but it was a brilliant occasion and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately we made an even earlier Championship exit the following year and I was called back again for the Munster final between Clare and Tipperary, which I covered from the studio in Dublin. In the last three Championship seasons I was involved in we enjoyed lengthy runs, reaching two finals and a semi-final so I wasn’t called in at all, but, from 2001 on I became a regular fixture.
There is a certain prestige attached to doing it and, of course, it strokes the ego, something we all liked as players, whether we admit it or not, and this helps fill the void somewhat. While I still enjoy it, the novelty soon wears off when you’re on the evening highlights programme and have to spend ten hours or so in Montrose.
In the last few years I have worked more as the cocommentator during the live broadcast alongside Ger Canning or Marty Morrissey and you need to get used to their individual style over time. I found it awkward at the start in terms of knowing when to interject with your own piece of analysis to supplement the main commentator, and I’d often look for a physical sign from them but, over time, it becomes more intuitive once you’ve developed a rapport.
People sometimes say to me after a game that I didn’t mutter a word for ages but, if a straightforward point has been scored and Ger or Marty have described it in forensic detail, there’s not much point in me adding to it for no good reason. You also have to deal with the mutterings of the producer in your cans throughout the game. Most of the time, what he’s saying doesn’t relate to you but it can be distracting if you allow it to be. Something like, “Tell that lad to get out of the way of the camera!” would often be blurted out, or sometimes they can get wrapped up in the game and roar, “That wasn’t a free!” But they could also ask you to comment on something that has happened, so you have to be conscious of what’s being said in the background. I prefer the live commentary in that you do your seventy minutes and your day’s work is done, but it’s a far more difficult assignment than the analysis in the studio because, in that scenario, you have plenty of time to think about what you’re going to say.
It’s all on-the-spot when the match is unfolding in front of you.’