Pat Spillane, the TV controversial pundit who played some football in the 80s, has finally admitted he might now see the value in defending in numbers and attacking on the break.

The Kerryman, who lambasted Tyrone for a decade for having the temerity to bring more than six defenders back into their own half and famously labelled their brand of football ‘puke’ and ‘basketball’, maintains his comments were taken out of context:

“No, I never said anything of the sort. Defending is an art and the more defenders you have the more arty it is. It was magical to watch The Mighty Kingdom swarm around the Donegal forwards. Sometimes we had eight defenders on one Donegal man – it was a pleasure to behold. Kerry have always been innovators and this new blanket tactic we have invented will change the game of Gaelic football. But, a word of warning – no one will be able to do it the way we do it.”

When pressed on the statistics which showed that Kerry made 1399 hand passes and 3 foot passes, he added:

“And what? Listen, foot-passing is an archaic mode of transferring the ball from one player to the next. It’s unreliable and statistically inaccurate the majority of time. No, again Kerry have redefined keeping possession. We’re just brilliant at it.”

Spillane finally became irate when our journalist posed the question regarding the 72 tactical fouls Kerry made outside the scoring zone:

“Away back up north with you and stop whining. It’s a man’s game. You Ulster men come down here with your fancy dan football, soloing and kicking the ball to each other. Well, where’s Sam now? He’s well hidden under the Kerry blanket. Yerra.”

The multiple All-Star forward also defended Barry John Keane’s cynical ploy of kicking the ball off the goalkeeper’s tee in injury time as ‘high jinks’ and that the ‘sun was probably in his eyes’. He added:

“If Sean Cavanagh had done that it’s a different matter. He’d probably have stabbed the ball with a penknife anyway. Puke stuff.”