Football star Stephanie Roche has defended RTE’s punditry after Joe Brolly described The Sunday Game as “passionless” and “dull”.
Eamon Dunphy had previously accused RTE of “ageism” for letting people like Liam Brady, Ted Walsh and Pat Spillane go and hiring pundits who were too afraid to express their true opinion on telly.
But Stephanie said the landscape has changed and there were different ways to give your opinion without slating someone. The Dubliner, who joins RTE as a pundit for the women’s World Cup, said: “First of all, I grew up watching Dunphy, Giles and Liam Brady.
"They were people I looked up to. I thought they were brilliant. “They were the face of Irish sport for a long, long time. I really enjoyed them.
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“I think the world is changing now. I think a lot of the time you have to be so careful what you say because you don’t want to offend anybody. I think that is what he means.”
Dunphy previously said he thought RTE Sport “appear to want to destroy” the nature of punditry, while Joe Brolly has slated The Sunday Game’s punditry.
Speaking at the launch of Jenny McCarthy’s debut book, The Wedding, at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin, Stephanie said: “I think there is a way of getting your point across and saying it in a way that… you know there is a way of doing it.
“But you also have to make sure you give your opinion and not just say what everybody else is saying.”
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