DURING HIS TIME as a Sunday Game pundit, Tony Davis recalls a short but firm set of legal guidelines to follow while in the hotseat.Cork’s two-time All-Ireland winner honoured that expectation throughout the 19 years that he worked on the show. Others applied that freedom a bit more liberally.
The game is changing every year and I’m not saying that someone has to be playing the game or managing in order to be a top pundit but you do need to have your hands involved in an inter-county team, particularly with all the pressures of social media. The keyboard warriors are a bit toxic and it does take a bit out of you. “I heard Pat speaking about how it affected him and I can see how it would so I’d say at this stage, he’s had enough of it.
During his time on The Sunday Game, he has also experienced more physical forms of intimidation Davis was on duty with him when he witnessed one such event at Croke Park. The pair had just finished a broadcast, and some beleaguered viewers of the show were waiting to confront the Kerry man. Up until 2019, the club was part of the Kenmare District, and O’Neill and Spillane won a senior county championship together with that side in 1974.
“It’s a dream for Templenoe. We’re playing in the senior championship since 2019, and there’s only eight clubs in that bracket. This is our fourth year and we’re holding our own. “He was the best man behind a bar I ever saw. You could come in the bar, and you’d hardly be able to get in, and he’d put the head up and know exactly what you wanted.
“The whole thing was ridiculous anyway,” says Davis, “and people were saying no-one should have been sent off and sure how they could not send someone off? It was an All-Ireland final and it was mayhem.