TV VIEW/Johnny WattersonAwards ceremonies are essentially trivial. RTÉ's end of year review and crystal vase for personality of the year on Friday evening began in a heavily poetic vein - "Let's talk, let's talk about you and of who you really are and the things you do," said RTÉ wordsmith Keith Wilson, not addressing Eamon Dunphy but in a voiceover to a collage of sporting images from 2002.
From that poetic fissure sprung the gang of six, a media pundit scrum in black tie and arranged formally around a table. A think tank of sporting minds, middle-aged and sound byte friendly.
The network was taking no prisoners here. This gang could opine their way to an Olympic podium. With Dunphy, George Hook, Pat Spillane, Ted Walsh and Liam Griffin (who made the best point of the night: that Ireland is a Third World country in sport) primed, this was no drive around the scenic highways and by-ways of sporting Ireland 2002.
Spillane slagged Tommy Lyons, but not before the Dublin county manager stuck in the first boot to Kerry; Griffin slagged the Hookster after the rugby pundit called for market forces and professionalism to prevail in Gaelic games, but not before Hook, comparing himself to the Pope (not Brent), had drawn laughs upon his own head; Dunphy admitted he knew little about rugby and Walsh was candid as ever.
The trainer explained that he had been in America when Europe won the Ryder Cup. Having met Padraig Harrington a number of times, Walsh confessed: "I was so proud (of Harrington) to even bullshit that I knew him."
In selecting a "personality" of the year, the difficulties are everywhere. How do they compare an amateur GAA team achievement, which has little or no international dimension, with a global professional soldier like Harrington, who is rarely in the same country for more than a week at a time? These things don't bear scrutiny.
Then consider an athlete like Sam Lynch. Lynch is Ireland's world champion rower, which many people don't know. This year, astonishingly, he won the event for the second time. Walsh touched on this issue when he declared that racing and the sport's achievements don't get the attention they deserve. Media Puzzle wins the Melbourne Cup because trainer Dermot Weld can bring a dumb animal to Australia and make it believe it is still at home, while the FAI can't organise proper training for the Irish soccer team at a World Cup finals.
"I trained on a car park. Bloody rock hard," said Keane in a Saipan clip, his voice rising with anger.
Dunphy inevitably entered the Keane fray and reacted with his serious face when Michael Lyster suggested that, as Keane's biographer, he played a role in the affair.
"I played no role in it at all," blew the former player. The audience laughed. They didn't appear to believe him. Dunphy didn't care much if they did, and carefully rolled with the punch, then changed direction.
"This was a dispute about standards. One courageous man in this country, who for the first time ever has had the guts, the intelligence and knowledge to call it as it was and it was Roy Keane. I played no part in it whatsoever. Anyone who thinks I had any influence on Roy Keane underestimates Roy Keane by 1,000 per cent."
Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin was hauled onto the stage and was inevitably asked about his teammate DJ Carey, who cast a long shadow over the summer but played only a fleeting but vital roll in Kilkenny's All-Ireland triumph.
"We always wanted DJ back," said Shefflin, before halting for a moment to think of why they wanted DJ back. "Because DJ is DJ at the end of the day."
Harrington walked away with the Personality of the Year Award. He deserved it. So did Tony McCoy. Sam Lynch did too, but he would never get it. If it had been a phone-in Keane would have won. And Dermot Lennon? Nah.
The programme was like one of those days which O'Connell described from his youth, when he used kick a ball around the Valentia fields with barefooted Spanish fishermen. A knock about, a bit of fun.
