Paul Kimmage and Gavan Reilly joined Adrian Barry to look through the Sunday Papers this week, with stories about the scandal at the IAAF and John Terry's comments on taking criticism from players of a certain standard making headlines.
Kimmage was in particularly spiky form as he challenged the reasoning behind the proliferation of stories about the decline of Jose Mourinho in the papers, which has been the main topic of conversation for a number of weeks, and without any real developments.
"What an awful, awful indictment of our profession," Kimmage said. "This pantomime continues week after week after week [...] it drives me insane. That's the only thing we're going to read about, Jose beaten yesterday, more of the same shite again".
The Sunday Times features David Walsh's piece that calls for Russia to be banned from Rio after claims of systematic doping in their athletics program, which was revealed by whistleblowers Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov.
Kimmage stated that it would be "naive to think that you're only dealing with [the Russians] here", while Reilly highlighted that "it stretches incredulity" on Sebastian Coe's part to claim, as the IAAF vice president for seven years, that he hadn't even heard a whisper about it.
The topic of Jim McGuinness' new memoir also appeared in the papers, and Kimmage highlights that while there was plenty in there which made it brilliant, but the fact that he doesn't address the incident involving Declan Bogue's book, which Kevin Cassidy contributed to.
"As a ghostwriter, you have a duty, and I'm not suggesting Keith [Duggan] didn't try to do this with McGuinness, you certainly have to alert him to the fact that this is a very important issue that people will want him to explain, and he can't ignore it".
Neil Francis in the Independent also had a strong piece, lead by the picture of the New Zealand back Sonny Bill Williams, giving his medal to a young kid who made a dash on to the pitch.
In it, Francis turns his attention to the way that certain players make a show of their religious beliefs, and then don't follow that code off the pitch, which makes it "hard to take them seriously. Impossible in fact."
However, Kimmage pointed out that "The thing about Sonny Bill Williams is this is not an act. He's had some very big problems in his life before he became a Muslim, and since he has done he's embraced it and has genuinely transformed himself".
Image: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan
The topic of journalism versus content also got a mention, as the panel debated how sports is covered both online and in the newspapers. Kimmage had much to say on the online sphere, while Reilly was keen to point out that there are good journalists out there working for websites, and "if you've got somewhere that you know provides good stuff, you don't necessarily need to see it as ink on paper to appreciate it".
You can listen to the full Sunday sports pages review below:
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