Montage season begins with RTE's typically rousing preview of the Six Nations championship.
Tom McGurk mustn't have been available this month a the state broadcaster have dispensed with the usual footage on him striding around the Grand Canal with an antique late 1940s brown oval ball in his paws.
No, this one is all footage of the Irish players and coaches as well as shots of the crowd in a state of delirium or high anxiety and the RTE pundits locked in serious discussion. Complete with an epic soundtrack and a self-important voiceover.
RTE have long excelled at the pre-match montage but we watched this one with a heavy heart dear reader.
For 2017 is the last year that RTE will hold the rights to the Six Nations Championship. Well, at least until the rights come up for grabs again in 2021. Indeed, the first commenter under RTE's tweet of the montage is so cruel as to remind them of this.
We contend that you would need to be a man of quite super-human stoicism not to choke up at the sound of Ryle Nugent screaming "GRAND SLAM AT STAKE!!!" in this montage.
Alas, it appears that Ryle will spend the next few years in the O'Carroll Kelly household offering his personal commentary service for Castlerock's legendary No. 10 and his father.
'They create the magic - We Take You There' - Six Nations rugby on @RTEsport @RTErugby #RTErugby pic.twitter.com/IiiXZX3iuB
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) January 23, 2017
