Joe Brolly has baffling excuse after calling All Ireland contenders 'useless'

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a day ago

Joe Brolly has given a baffling explanation after being criticised for some questionable punditry.
Writing in the Irish Independent at the end of June, Brolly slammed Kerry's squad as 'useless' while explaining how the Kingdom judge their teams at a different level to all others.
Suggesting that the Kerry population have a 'scorn' for their own team, the pundit went on to write that 'Being a Kerry footballer is like being Michael Jordan's son.' His point seemingly being that no matter how good you are, you will never be good enough when you are constantly compared to the greatest of all time. Joe Brolly. Pic: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos
The Derry man went on to include plenty of conversations with people of Kerry dismissing their own team's chances, but it was Brolly himself who emphatically stated that 'the current crop is useless altogether.'
'Only David Clifford is exempt,' he wrote.
The comments were boldly confident and, taking the analysis at face value, one would have been left to conclude that the Kingdom were destined for early All-Ireland elimination.
Instead, just weeks later, Kerry went on to throttle Armagh, current All-Ireland champions, by a score of 0-32 to 1-21.
40:00 – Rian O'Neill puts Armagh 5 up56:40 – David Clifford puts Kerry 10 up16 mins of just outrageous football.
The Sunday Game 🎥 pic.twitter.com/5YJyFQG9lZ — Daniel Hussey (@DanielHussey2) June 30, 2025
Having written off Armagh earlier this season, Brolly proclaimed in his piece; 'I was wrong, a confession I have not had to make since childhood.' Just weeks later, perhaps it was time for him to whip out that dusty old confession once again? He was, after all, clearly wrong. 25 January 2020; Eir Sport pundit Joe Brolly before the Allianz Football League Division 1 Round 1 match between Donegal and Mayo at MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey, Donegal. Photo by Oliver McVeigh/Sportsfile
However, speaking on his Free State podcast, Brolly said that he had absolutely nothing to apologise for.
'Let me try to explain this to you,' he told his cohost Dion Fanning. 'My pieces are an entertainment, they're a conversation in the pub. They're written before the games. You understand that?
'I don't have a crystal ball. Games are chaotic and unpredictable, [so] anything can and often does happen.
'These pieces essentially… I'm not one bit irritated. They're fun. That's why they're read. That's why people get into it and enjoy the conversation and the debate and all the rest of it.' Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
So, it appears Brolly's excuse is that it's absolutely fine when players or entire squads get slated by pundits, but when it comes to pundits being questioned by their own readers? Outrageous.
Criticism is fine when you've a ball in your hand, but when it's a pen between your fingers? Completely out of order. Sport is serious business after all. Punditry is only fun.
It's not like he's a professional pundit writing for a national newspaper, it's just 'a conversation in the pub'.
And if it is only pub talk, maybe it isn't Kerry's squad that's 'useless'?