Kenny Cunningham – calling it as you see it is a hazardous pursuit

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

Kenny Cunningham is obviously too young to have learned from the mistakes of his punditry pal Eamon Dunphy – but now he knows what a fool you can feel if you express your pre-match thoughts a little too earnestly.

And while it’s great to have an analyst who actually says something, one should always be just a little careful not to create hostages to fortune.

The RTÉ panel has long been lauded – largely by themselves, it must be said – for their forthright views on football and the world in general. So Kenny, a relative newcomer, obviously feels he has something to prove in order to justify his continued selection.

So the man, who was previously best known in a television context for having a short coating of hair that seemed to have a life of its own, decided to wade into USA goalkeeper Tim Howard before America’s showdown with Belgium.

Maybe it was the studio presence of Howard’s predecessor as US keeper, Brad Friedel, that irked Cunningham to the point that he decided to go for broke.

“He’ll always be termed a good goalkeeper but not one of the very best,” declared Kenny, echoing his old pal, and deputy senior analyst, Dunphy, who once described the French midfield maestro Michel Platini and ‘a good midfielder, not a great midfielder’ before the Little General went on to justify Dunphy’s outburst by becoming one of the greatest players of all time.

Cunningham revealed that, when he used to come up against Howard at club level in England, opposing managers would single him out as the opposition’s weakest link, a man who folded under pressure.

Of course Cunningham couldn’t know that his comments would come minutes before Howard did a credible impression of a brick wall, producing no less than 16 saves that each qualified for the description ‘world class’.

Indeed Howard’s performance was such that he might still be named goalkeeper of this World Cup – although there are plenty of alternatives in a tournament laced with brilliant shot-stoppers – but Kenny wasn’t finished digging a big hole for himself back in the RTÉ studios.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.