JOE BROLLY HAD another pop at Rob Hennelly in his Sunday Independent column yesterday.
Eight days after Mayo’s All-Ireland final loss to Dublin, Brolly took Hennelly to task over the statement he released on Instagram in the wake of the defeat.
“Hennelly seems a good lad, but was no sooner out of the shower than he was embracing his experience, as though it were some noble tragedy,” Brolly wrote.
“The sort of guff you might expect to hear on daytime TV from one of the guests who has just been chatting about his love of Egyptian cotton pyjamas as he tastes the celebrity chef’s black pudding and macaroon sandwich.
It was like a celebrity break-up, save for the fact he didn’t say he was consciously uncoupling from Mayo. Rob could incorporate this experience into his motivational talks for the GPA and the Web Summit. His strap-line on his Twitter account reads: ‘Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.’
“I said before the final there were some celebrity losers in this Mayo group. I meant by that that some of them are not serious footballers, fully absorbed in the battle. While that remains the case, the warriors on the team will carry them to finals, but will continue to be beaten by the handicap on the biggest day.”
He concluded: “When a ‘keeper’s meltdown is turned into a heart-warming PR exercise, it is not hard to see why Mayo didn’t win the All-Ireland.”
To drag in Hennelly’s work at the Web Summit and with the GPA seems unnecessary on Brolly’s part. Criticising a player for his performance is fair game, but there’s little need for a pundit to go beyond that and make it personal.
Brolly seems to have an issue with the fact that Hennelly is more of a public figure than the other goalkeepers he mentioned in his piece, but the 26-year-old is managing director of his own digital media company, Love Media, so a public profile comes with the territory.
There was a mixed reaction online:
Whoops!
We couldn't find this Tweet
What do you think? Did Brolly go over the top with his criticism of Hennelly? Let us know in the comments section below.
Modern crowds are eejits. Social media age is to blame, same as the darts a few weeks ago :-/
@John Kelly: 100% John !!! Whip the phone out and take a picture for the Gram. Mo Salah scored one the best goals I’ve ever seen against Man City and few weeks ago and you just see lads scrambling for their phone for a picture instead of just enjoying the euphoria of a goal (there’s nothing like it) I was at the CL final in Moscow in 2008 and seeing John Terry slip on his arse was my defyning moment as a football fan. I remember it perfectly and I wasn’t reaching for my phone and losing the moment in the process becauseit wasn’t a thing back then. People don’t enjoy things anymore , Emirates Stadium in London is the absolute worst for it Its all about image and what there social media “Friends” will think. Its Sad !!
One of the most infuriating sounds
@Stephen Keane: haven’t seen any of the tennis, but is this a new thing or have crowds been at it in previous tournaments? Don’t remember hearing/reading anything about it before.
@Joe Kennedy: I haven’t been watching it either. Just meant that it’s a pretty annoying sound in general.