Colm O'Rourke admits Joe Brolly will be a big loss to RTE's GAA coverage following his axing from The Sunday Game.

The Derry pundit was dropped by RTE for tomorrow's All-Ireland SFC final replay following his controversial comments at half-time in the drawn encounter. Brolly maintained that match referee David Gough had been “clearly influenced by the propaganda coming from Kerry” after he awarded the Kingdom an early penalty and sent off Jonny Cooper on a second yellow card just before half-time. 

Despite retracting his comments and apologising to Gough last week, Brolly won't be on the RTE panel tomorrow with Donegal coach and former Mayo manager Stephen Rochford taking his place.

Fellow RTE analyst O'Rourke told the Irish News: "I'm not clear what exactly has taken place with him, but I think he would be a serious loss to punditry and analysis of games.

"While he may divide opinion, he offers different views and people are in a position to agree or disagree with him. I think the last thing you need is blandness.

"I haven't spoken to him. I'm not clear exactly on whether he was not available for Saturday or whether it was just a once off, but I presume and would hope he would be back next year."

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