'The Sunday Game' pundit's chair is proving to be a lot more comfortable than Tomás Ó Sé thought it would be.

The Kerry great has made a seamless transition from the playing field to the RTE studio and, writing in today's Irish Independent, he admits he's surprised by how much he enjoys it.

He also dispels the public perception that he and his fellow analysts thrive on controversy.

"There was a time in the Kerry dressing-room when we reckoned Johnnie Cochran himself couldn't save you from suspension if 'The Sunday Game' decided to go after you.

"Judge and jury, that's how we saw the TV boys. If they said you were a sinner, the CCCC almost inevitably agreed. It was like the delivery of a Papal directive. Now I never felt, personally, that I was wronged by anyone in the RTE studio, but there were nights I'd bristle over the treatment of others.

"The day in 2008 when Paul Galvin slapped that notebook out of Paddy Russell's hand particularly comes to mind.

"Now, there was no condoning what Paul did, but he was hung, drawn and quartered that evening without anyone showing the remotest interest in exploring what it was that made him so mad. I turned the TV off, couldn't watch it. If I'd left it on, chances were I'd have ended up flinging something through it.

"Put it this way, Paul got absolutely dogged by his man in that game against Clare and I have a memory of him trying on a number of occasions to draw the linesman's attention to what was happening and being completely ignored. In my own head, I was actually admiring his restraint. Because the pit-bull inside of me would probably just have responded by delivering a box.

"His second booking seemed to be for the misfortune of having both arms pinned to his side by a man who was being openly encouraged by his team-mates to 'hammer into Galvin'. Paul was Kerry captain the same day by the way and, as such, surely entitled to ask for an explanation of what exactly he had done wrong.

"But Paddy completely ignored him.

"I could see why that had Galvin bulling. He was just coming back from a long-term injury that had wrecked his year before and was desperate to make up for lost time. The captaincy meant a lot to Paul, he wanted to be a real leader for Kerry that year. But his game was over now and the officials wouldn't even make eye-contact with him, let alone provide an answer.

"So something flipped in Galvin that evening and a notebook went flying.

"And the boys on 'The Sunday Game' went after him as if he'd taken a machine gun to an orphanage. He'd get a six-month suspension (subsequently reduced to three) for damage inflicted on Paddy's notebook and, sitting at home that night, I'd have to admit that I considered the boys in the pundits' chairs as some kind of alien species.

"The idea that I'd some day become one of them? Nah, not a hope. I suppose I took the Mick McCarthy view of things. You were either inside the tent p*****g out, or outside it p*****g in.

"But here I am, now into my second season of holding court from the TV chair. And the experience has changed a few personal preconceptions. One thing I can categorically say is that there is no gratuitous appetite for controversy. Nobody goes on air with an agenda."

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