Second Captains @ The Irish Times

Steven Gerrard defies the doubters to lead Rangers back to the summit of Scottish football just as Jurgen Klopp loses his sixth home match in a row? This is getting a bit witchy. Meanwhile, Luke Shaw was the hero as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer led Man United to yet another win in the Manchester derby. Maybe the win has come too late to affect the destination of the league title, but could United have given Guardiola something to worry about for the Champions League? Jordan Campbell of the Athletic joins us to talk about Rangers' title success. Is this more than winning the league by default after the only credible opposition collapsed? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's World Service Menu Taster time and this week we had joy and we had fun but our faith in the FAI to deliver a home World Cup is sadly starting to fade. We also discuss Big Boris' plucky Brexit Britain, Jerry Flannery's Tonya Harding moment and we chat to Derval O'Rourke about world records, times and new technology.You can join any time for a fiver a month at secondcaptains.com/join/ - no contract, no ads, no minimum stay. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You make your own luck in sport, unless you're the Welsh rugby team, who on Saturday had a lot of ref and TMO decisions go their way. So is it just that everything always comes up Wales, or are they a doughty, tough, mentally resilient and increasingly skillful side that deserves the Triple Crown and the now inevitable Grand Slam?We talk to Gerry Thornley and Shane Horgan about the series of Covid breaches in French rugby, if Fabien Galthie will get the sack, and what the French Government, the French rugby union and 6N should do about this.We ask if Ireland can continue to offload against the good teams, if Andy Farrell, with Kelleher, Furlong, Kilcoyne, Henderson, Ryan, Beirne, Connors and Stander, has found his best set of forwards for the Scotland and England games.Plus there's Rees Zammit's poker face and rugby analysis via Kevin Costner and Lewis Dunk. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Man United's matches against the big six have been following a pretty familiar, pretty boring pattern as of late and yesterday's 0-0 draw with Chelsea was no different.And so any dash of colour during an otherwise drab weekend had to come from the Sky Sports punditry team, with things between Roy Keane and Jamie Redknapp getting heated. Why was Keane getting more annoyed at what he was saying himself than what Redknapp was saying? And what does Matt Doherty have to do with all of this? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As expected Novak Djokovic marched to his 9th Australian Open title this weekend, but the really interesting events happened after the match. In the last five days five different Irish athletes have posted the five fastest runs in the history of the 800m Irish indoors. Nadia Power and Siofra Cléirigh Buttner are top of the pile, and Eoin wonders if we have another (Ollie) Campbell (Tony) Ward fight to the death on our hands.And several listeners have informed us that Eoin does not pronounce the word "film" correctly. Yep, its time to call the Grammar Police. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Which PL player is Erling Haaland most like? Murph is invited to guess - and the results may surprise you. We also talk about no-nonsense Thomas Tuchel, and how the methods of a certain somebody remain beyond reproach.We are joined by Jonathan Wilson and Dion Fanning to look back at the weekend's football. After their first win at Anfield in the 21st century, where is the ceiling for Everton? How are Manchester City close to setting a world record for consecutive wins? And why do people keep suggesting West Ham have been better without West Ham fans? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It’s time for your weekly whiff of the Second Captains World Service which includes football's future, the GAA's past and the Second Captains mailbag reaches max capacity. Join for five euro a month + VAT at secondcaptains.com/join for independent, member-led broadcasting. There’s no contracts, no minimum stay, and no adverts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Everyone seems to be talking about Liverpool Football Club as a pitiable mess, an irredeemable shambles, and after watching them concede 3 goals in the last 15 minutes against Leicester, you might be forgiven for thinking their world was falling in. But there's plenty of shambles to go around, and Man United are far from immune. And while the two most successful teams in English football implode, there's City - embarking on a record-breaking run of wins, and now seemingly sauntering to another league title. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ireland were gutsy and got close on the scoreline against France but lacked any real creativity in attack, even when against 14 men. Where does Andy Farrell go from here, and is his position as head coach now under pressure?We talk to Shane Horgan and Andrew Trimble about our philosophy in attack, what changes Farrell should make for the Italy game, if we are any closer to finding out who our best halfbacks are, the impact made by Paul O'Connell and the non-impact from Mike Catt, and if this Scottish generation are already running out of time to seize a golden opportunity.Plus there's Murph on his tartan certainty, more HoggWatch and Grammar Corner. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

'To me, they've been bad champions'. Those were the words of impartial observer Roy Keane on Sky Sports yesterday as any glimmer of hope Liverpool were clinging on to that they were still in the title race was repeatedly stamped on by Alisson Becker's big boot.As for Jurgen Klopp, he's not taking the collapse of his dreams into tiny piles of dust all too well. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From the 14th minute when Peter O'Mahony was sent off  for a dangerous clear-out, Ireland looked in trouble in Cardiff, and despite showing encouraging flashes in attack, and improvements at the set-piece, they eventually went down 21-16 for a dispiriting start to 2021.Shane Horgan and Andrew Trimble join us to discuss how damaging that moment was, the outhalf dilemma, where Ireland showed improvement, and small talk with Andy Farrell.The Scots provided all the drama on Saturday evening as they won in Twickenham for the first time since 1983, in the process shoving some words down Murph's throat. Does he retreat,or double down today? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs facing off in the Super Bowl this Sunday, what better time to speak to the last Irishman to play in the NFL, ten-year vet Neil O'Donoghue whose career highlight just so happened to come for the Bucs against the Chiefs. We also got our Six Nations coverage under way with Shane Horgan and Andrew Trimble who looked back on their various humiliations against Wales, while Ken thanked himself for his own journalistic contributions. Join the World Service now for just €5 + VAT a month at secondcaptains.com/join/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Whenever the directors at Barcelona are faced with a crisis, they fall back on the programming of their Barca DNA: whatever the situation, simply add more smoke, mirrors, cloaks, daggers, secrets, spies and lying eyes, and wait to see what happens. This is how they can pay a guy more than half a billion euros over four years and still have him hate them with the fire of a thousand suns. We also discuss some of the Premier League weekend talking points, such as whether Thiago is the new Juan Sebastian Veron. Jacob Steinberg and Alan Smith join us to discuss whether Jose Mourinho can make it to the end of February, and whether there is any hope for Gareth Bale. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chelsea have sacked Frank Lampard, with Tuchel set to take over. What did Frank do wrong, besides the losses, the waste of talent and putting the blame on his players?Liverpool scored two goals against Man United and played better than they have done recently but big games come down to the weakest link, or maybe what you thought was your strongest link turning out to have a few cracks?A number of Ireland players have timed their return to fitness nicely ahead of the 2021 Six Nations, including Tadhg Furlong, Dave Kilcoyne, Iain Henderson and James Lowe but the Munster players will have a ton of regrets after taking a 10-0 lead inside 12 mins, dominating possession, and still losing 13-10 to Leinster. Shane Horgan and Andrew Trimble tell us why Munster should still be optimistic and why Leinster should start to heed the warning signs of a slip in form. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's time for your weekly waft of the Second Captains World Service which includes Ken the songbird, Eoin pitching his movie idea, Failing Frank and our chat with the brilliant Ciara Mageean about the race that changed her life.Join for five euro a month + VAT at secondcaptains.com/join for independent, member-led broadcasting. There's no contracts, no minimum stay, and no adverts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

NOTE: This was initially a Second Captains World Service members-only show broadcasted first on 15th of January 2021. Due to the importance of the subject matter and the huge reaction to Fionn's story, we have decided to re-publish for all today, the 19th of January. To help us continue to produce independent, member-led journalism like this and projects like 'Where Is George Gibney?', please join the Second Captains World Service for just €5 a month. Enjoy the show and thanks to all our members as always for their support.**Today we go entirely outside of sport on the Second Captains World Service and the magnitude of the Mother and Baby report this week in Ireland warrants it, particularly when a friend of the podcast has such an important story to tell. Fionn Davenport was born in the St Patrick’s Mother and Baby home on the Navan Rd in Dublin in 1968. His mother Jane was lied to and told she couldn’t keep her son. Fionn was adopted soon afterwards.This week, this dark part of our history has been brought

Ken inspects his bulging mailbag and finds listeners and non-listeners alike have lost patience with the constant stream of nonsense he has talked on many subjects, ranging from the source of Liverpool's problems, the quality of Marcus Rashford's performances and Frank Lampard's trust in Mason Mount. Carefully, patiently, he sets these losers and haters straight.We hear quite a lot from Alex Ferguson today, from his negotiations with Andrei Kanchelskis' agent to his opinions about the recently-retired Wayne Rooney.Rory Smith joins us to discuss yesterday's game at Anfield. Why are Liverpool bad now? Is their recruitment department quite the world-beating operation it's cracked up to be? And is Bruno Fernandes the new Luis Suarez? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Its time for your weekly snifter of the Second Captains World Service. We build up to Liverpool V Man Utd by looking at Solskjaer's skill at cutting away the dead wood at Old Trafford, US Murph talks to us about Trump and the Capitol riots and Ken takes a reading on golf's moral compass. Join for five euro a month at secondcaptains.com/join. We are independent and member led. There's no contracts, no minimum stay, and no adverts. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stephen Kenny has had a highly eventful time as Ireland manager with a penalty playoff loss, a pandemic, a Covid close contacts crisis, a video storm, 8 games without a win and now he has lost his assistant coach Damien Duff. Ken journalist is on the case, and he has some strong leads (1.00). Paul O'Connell is maybe Ireland's best-ever forward, one of our best ever captains, a Lions captain, but besides a curtailed spell in Paris and some short stints in Ireland, he hasn't got a very extensive coaching CV. We ask Shane Horgan and Gerry Thornley to predict how good he will be, and why (20.30).Plus there's Roy Keane football manager, mighty Leinster, Connacht butchering a 15 on 13 overlap and Eoin McDevitt's shredded sports calendar. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tom Parsons joined us alongside his old friend and former teammate Andy Moran to discuss his decision to retire this week, one of four Mayo careers which came to a close over a handful of days. US Murph has been prepping us for the start of the NFL postseason this weekend, while Stephen A Smith prepped Dallas Cowboys fans for the premature end of their season. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.