Second Captains

Players despise fans, we know that, but should they nevertheless feel compelled to salute them at the end of every game or can we all do without this level of insincerity?  Bohemians sealed fourth place in the League of Ireland and will qualify for Europe if Shamrock Rovers complete the double next weekend, but this did not improve the mood of manager Alan Reynolds, who this weekend dubbed Bo...

This week winter announced its arrival with rain that was general all over Ireland, nonetheless we've been having a fun week here at Second Captains Towers and now we want to share some of that with you. Before Ireland take on New Zealand in Chicago we hear from Conor Murray who was a guest of ours at the Gaiety a few weeks back. Can Ireland repeat the victory of Conor and the other men of '16. St...

Is Keith Andrews the new Mikel Arteta? Hard to say for sure, as it suddenly seems as though everybody wants to be the new version of the Arsenal coach, whose bulletproof juggernaut continues to bulldoze all comers. But it was another good weekend for Andrews, whose team personify the spirit of 2025.  We also talk about the wildly different interpretation of the sport demonstrated by Real Madr...

Orla Comerford has just come off a sensational year, one which started in Paris in September 2024 when she took a Paralympic bronze medal in the 100m and finished 3 weeks ago with double World Championship golds in the 100 and 200m. She joined us in studio this week to chat through the madness of the last 13 months. It’s almost World Series time, and reigning champions the LA Dodgers got there cou...

Munster had 35% possession, 31% territory, had to make 270 tackles to Leinster's 117, had the inferior scrum, went down to an early try, and we're playing against a team full of Lions and Ireland internationals.... and won it easing up, with a 4-try bonus point. We chat to Shane Horgan and Barry Murphy about Munster's brilliant all-round display, bigger/faster/stronger/smarter Jack Crowley, turnin...

Ken is on holiday!! Come back, please keep reading, there is a but coming.. Ken is on holiday BUT given the enormity of the football weekend we have all just lived through he is taking a break from his mini-retirement to dial in from the beautiful citadel of Milan(o) and bring you today's football pod. Enthused by the fresh alpine air of which he now breathes, Ken asks questions such as; Is Arteta...

What an Incredible week we’ve had in Second Captains, and thanks again to our guests and those who came to the Gaiety both nights. Eamon Dunphy got the biggest Second Captains standing ovation of all time, and we have a taster for you on today's best of show. We also had Martin O'Neill at the Gaiety and he was keen to debate the merits of data and XG with Ken. And Ken chatted to Simon Kuper about...

It’s live show day in the Second Captains offices, but we still found time to send our best and brightest (and oldest), Simon Hick off to talk to Andy Farrell, on the release of his autobiography “The Only Way I Know” this week. Simon chats to Andy about what shaped Farrell as a person and a coach, how he has dealt with coaching with and against his son Owen, and how Ireland are shaping up ahead o...

Ireland have fallen to their second defeat of the 2026 World Cup Qualifying campaign and now sit bottom of Group F on one point.  Ken dials in from Lisbon as we talk through a night in which we came so close to a positive result.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Finn Azaz was asked about Heimir’s comment last week that the Irish players underestimated the challenge of Armenia. “I think it goes further than that. “In terms of the build up, the wins against Bulgaria, the improved performances and results leading up to that game. . . maybe there was a lack of understanding of the challenge that we were coming up against away to Armenia, in terms of the occas...

“I made a mistake that was not in keeping with my character and the standards I set myself. I am now taking steps to address the matter.” With Jim Gavin pulling out of the race to be the President, we ask GAA man Ciaran Murphy what his community makes of it all. Leinster have conceded 74 points in two games, losing both, while Munster have won two from two, albeit against weaker opposition. Sam Pr...

Brentford’s Sepp van den Berg showed one way not to defend against Erling Haaland this weekend: start the game by pushing him around in a mildly irritating manner. Don’t make him angry, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. Chelsea picked apart Liverpool by exploiting their known weaknesses, as detailed by Marc Cucurella after the match. When does a crisis evolve from frothing internet madness to...

The weekend's sport draws to a close, Monday arrives and you get a double shot of Second Captains. The world feels brighter, airier, you walk with an extra bounce in your step. Then comes Tuesday and there's a sudden void in your life. How can you make it six whole days without another dispatch of independent, member-led broadcasting?  Well, we've got a solution for you, dear Monday listener....

It was a wild Ryder Cup weekend at Bethpage Black, for good and for bad.  Despite heckling from American fans that managed all at once to be annoying, unoriginal and verging on the obscene, Europe wiped the floor with the US over the first two days of the tournament. And then came Sunday...  Malachy Clerkin of the Irish Times is in studio and Joe Callaghan joins us from New York to chat...

An explosive reaction to Liverpool's first defeat of the season maybe suggests discontent with performances was simmering through the recent series of late wins. Have we seen enough to state boldly that a certain Liverpool-player-of-the-decade and a certain almost-record-signing might not both fit into an effective Premier League team? Maybe not yet - but let's do it anyway.  Meanwhile A...

Kate O'Connor's heptathlon silver medal at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo was one of the truly great Irish sporting achievements. To post 5 personal bests in her 7 events, some of them with a knee injury, speaks to a truly elite mental toughness. Derval O'Rourke watched it all, was left by turns speechless and emotional over the course of Saturday morning, and joins us today to talk ab...

What must it be like to go to sea on what is expected to be a normal fishing expedition, only for the captain to go mad and start forcing random crew members to walk the plank?  The Chelsea players got to find out on Saturday evening as Enzo Maresca’s flurry of first half substitutions sent an already-entertaining game into the realm of farce.  We talk about that game and the tribulation...

The Champions League has been a lot of fun this week with Gurbanov, the madness in Turin, and Liverpool winning late, yet again. We chatted to Neil Atkinson of The Anfield Wrap. Ken tells us about where he was when Newcastle played the mighty Barcelona in 1997. We also chatted to the sports editor of The Nation, Dave Zirin, about the NFL coming to Ireland, to Cathal Dennehy in Tokyo about the worl...

Two-weight world champion Ricky Hatton, who was one of the best-known and most loved fighters of his generation, has died at the age of 46. Gavan Casey of the42 is in studio today along with Mike Costello, who was working at all the big Hatton fights in Vegas. We also analyse Paddy Donovan's rematch against Lewis Crocker in Belfast; despite two knockdowns Donovan thought he’d done enough to win th...

Nick Woltemade’s had his critics - some of the biggest Bundesliga beasts of all time popping up to give him a surprise pre-debut kicking in the media - so his winner for Newcastle against Wolves is a nice place to start today.  We debate whether Evan Ferguson can learn anything from the advice of Robert Lewandowski, and compare the progress of the title favourites: Arsenal looking smooth and...

What if, at 42 years of age, having spent your entire life playing Gaelic football, you were to take up one of the fastest sports in the world, one that most experts say you need to take up before the age of 7 or 8 if you’re to master the basics, and then write a book about it? Welcome to the live show launch of Murph's second book, the brilliant Old Parish: Notes On Hurling. Murph joined Old Pari...

When McIlroy drained a monster eagle putt on the 18th green at the K Club to get into a playoff, the fans at The Irish Open let out a roar worthy of any major; yesterday's dramatic, emotional win in front of his home fans caps off what is arguably the best season of his career. We chat to Joe Callaghan about Rory's roller coaster season, what incredible entertainment he provides, about the wholeso...

Ireland 2-2 Hungary - a scoreline that looked highly unlikely after 20 minutes, then looked reasonably likely after 55 minutes, before being greeted with untrammelled delight after 94 minutes. We’re still alive and still fighting for our World Cup place after the first game of this shortened qualification campaign, which actually marks a bit of progress. Where it all leaves us is the question we a...

We had a record breaking transfer window with subplots a plenty, World Cup fever has gripped the nation in advance of our qualifiers against Hungary and Armenia, and our star striker is settling in nicely to life in bella Italia. On top of the football, the Ryder Cup is coming soon, the US open is on, and ireland are into a QF at the women's Rugby World Cup. What we're saying is, you can't afford...

The European team was selected today, and even though Ryder Cup legend Shane Lowry missed out on automatic qualification, he was nevertheless Luke Donald’s obvious first pick. If you were to cut USA Captain Keegan Bradley, he would bleed US Ryder Cup Brookline uniform grey, white and wine; so his decision to omit in-form American golfer, Keegan Bradley, makes no real sense. Gavin Cooney will be in...