The nature of RTÉ's GAA coverage has changed dramatically in recent years and, ahead of this weekend's meeting of Dublin and Kerry in the All-Ireland football final, it's easy to look back to their 2019 meeting with rose-tinted glasses.
That day, the three men in the RTÉ studio tasked with analysing this iconic matchup were Joe Brolly, Pat Spillane, and Ciarán Whelan. It would turn out to be the last day that Brolly and Spillane would appear together in the RTÉ studio, with Brolly missing for the replay two weeks later.
Brolly's fallout with his former employers has been quite dramatic and prolonged, with the Derryman regularly feuding with RTÉ in public. Spillane would leave the RTÉ GAA team after last year's All-Ireland final, while the final member of their infamous trio, Colm O'Rourke, has not fulfilled any punditry duties since taking the job of Meath senior football manager.
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With the iconic RTÉ soccer panel also coming to an end with Liam Brady's departure earlier this year, Irish sporting fans are somewhat misty-eyed about the "golden era" of sports broadcasting on the channel.
Ahead of the All-Ireland final, the Irish Independent's Gaelic football podcast reunited the iconic Gaelic football trio of "Pat, Joe, and Colm" to discuss Sunday's big game.
Before any analysis could get underway, Kerryman Spillane couldn't resist a dig at Brolly for "saving his skin" with his departure from RTÉ.
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GAA: Iconic RTÉ Gaelic football panel reunited
When asked how happy he was to be reunited with his old partners in crime, Pat Spillane said he could not even remember the last time the three had worked together on a live game on RTÉ (the last final they covered together was the 2018 decider between Dublin and Tyrone).
Spillane went on to joke that Brolly's abrupt departure from RTÉ in the aftermath of the drawn game in 2019 had "saved his skin," and thanked Brolly for saving him from a simialr fate:
I think the last time I worked with Joe was the 2019 drawn final, when he inappropriately touched me on my thigh and got the bullet.
He saved my skin - I was trying to think about it, maybe the lads will know. When last did the three of us work together, me, Colm, and Joe? I'd say six years? Seven years?
The only good thing about it [Brolly leaving RTÉ] was that Joe saved my skin. I was getting the bullet first, I was the first to get my P45, and Joe saved me! I got two more years thanks to Joe - thank you Joe!
Do I think it? Do I know it?
2 September 2018; RTÉ Sunday Game presenter Michael Lyster, right, with panalists, from left, Colm O'Rourke, Joe Brolly and Pat Spillane ahead of Lyster's final Sunday Game broadcast prior to the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Dublin and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Brolly's fallout with RTÉ since his departure from their GAA coverage has been intense, with the 1993 All-Ireland winner fuming with the nature of his removal from the Sunday Game.
Following on from Spillane's comments, Brolly lamented the decision of RTÉ to break up the traditional trio of football pundits, and the end of their "false friendship" on screen:
Whenever your man came in, his first mission was to separate us and destroy our conviviality.
Garrison Keillor [an American writer] said that the great secret of television is false friendship, people liking you in your living rooms. His first mission was to break that up.
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