The 42FM

Was Katie Taylor the just winner of last night’s fight for the ages with Amanda Serrano?Was the majesty of Taylor-Serrano II diminished by its staging as part of a farcical event featuring Jake Paul and Mike Tyson?Was the fight so good as to deem such concerns irrelevant?Might Netflix now seek to stage Taylor-Serrano III as a headlining event, minus the novelty sideshow involving a YouTube personality and boxer who hit his peak 38 years ago?These questions and more are answered by Gavan Casey, our man in Dallas, who caught up with Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll this afternoon.

Why are Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano fighting on the undercard of the ‘freakshow’ that is Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul?Gavin Cooney and Sinead O’Carroll are joined from Dallas by Gavan Casey, and the trio discuss the rise of novelty ‘boxing’ events.They differ on whether Taylor is compromising her legacy by taking her place on such a card. Should the Bray fighter have turned her back on this spectacle, or would she be mad to have turned down the Netflix riches; a purse that dwarfs anything she has earned before in her stellar career?Hot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

WITH IRELAND KICKING off their November rugby internationals against New Zealand on Friday night, Gav and Sinéad debate the extent to which Ireland can really be called Rugby Country. Is rugby really a national obsession?The popularity of the provinces and the Irish national team is beyond question, but how has that fanbase grown given so few people play the game? Given the fact the Irish team is dominated by players produced by private schools, can the team be said to represent the country at large? And if not, does that even matter?The pair sift through some of the reasons underpinning the sport’s appeal -the violence, the success, the opportunities it affords for drinking - explain the amount of media coverage afforded to the sport, and ponder what, if anything, the sport’s popularity says about class divisions in Irish society.Get in touch with us - sinead@thejournal.ie and gavincooney@the42.ieHot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

AS THE LEAGUE of Ireland season draws towards its nerve-shredding final day, Gav and Sinead discuss the boom in popularity of domestic football.Why have crowds increased so significantly this decade? And can the rising numbers be leveraged into that most elusive and long-desired of things: a thriving football industry in Ireland.The pair talk about what needs to happen next to make that aspiration real, from improved stadiums with greater capacity, to television deals with major international networks and an academy structure which provides a conveyor belt of elite level talent which can further improve the standard of the league and lead to more hefty transfer fees from wealthy overseas clubs.With Shelbourne one win away from an unlikely title triumph, the impact of Damien Duff is examined. What is it about the League of Ireland that so energises one of Ireland’s greatest ever players? He says he will never manage an Irish club other than Shelbourne, but could he step into the Ireland manager’s chair in future, despite his past differences of opinion with the FAI?Hot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

There is an election on the horizon - even though the government won’t tell us when it will be.Whenever the official election campaign swings into action, though, it’s a near-certainty that no politician will be asked about sport. Today Gavin and Sinéad wonder why that is the case: can we really be said to care about sport in any real way if it is never raised as an election topic?Gavin and Sinéad explain why Ireland’s parish pump politics has led to inequality in access to sports facilities in different parts of the country, and ask whether it is now changing for the better.Also, why don’t we invest more money in sport? And has the news media’s move to cover politics like sport caused more harm than good?Contact us: sinead@thejournal.ie and gavincooney@the42.ie Hot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

GAA president Jarlath Burns last weekend floated the possibility that inter-county GAA managers could be put under regularised contracts, which brought back to the surface a persistent talking point in GAA: payments to managers.Despite the GAA’s amateur status, successive presidents and directors-general of the Association have acknowledged that managers are paid at club and inter-county level. On today’s show, Sinéad O’Carroll and Gavin Cooney reveal how much managers are making at club and inter-county level, and ask what it means for the GAA from a reputation and taxation point of view.Is the best remedy to regularise the payments, and if so, would that destroy the amateurism heart of the GAA? Or is that amateurism already dead?Contact us: sinead@thejournal.ie and gavincooney@the42.ieHot Pepper by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US