Second Captains Live is an Irish live topical sports and entertainment show produced and presented by Second Captains that first aired on

RTÉ Two (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...

television in Ireland on 10 September 2013 at 10.30pm. Each week Irish sports stars join the presenters to discuss their careers and the week's major sports stories. The show is filmed before a live studio audience and is the television debut of the award-winning team behind the ''Off The Ball'' sports programme on Newstalk, Eoin McDevitt, Ken Early, Ciarán Murphy, Simon Hick and Mark Horgan. Live music at the start and end of the programme is provided by

Hermitage Green Hermitage Green is a Hamlet (place)#United Kingdom, hamlet near the village of Winwick, Cheshire, Winwick in Cheshire, England. It is also the location of St Oswald's Church, Winwick#St Oswald's Well, St Oswald's Well (). During 2006 the series ...

. In August 2013, three months after their online radio show with the Irish Times show began, ''Second Captains'' made a not-for-broadcast pilot for RTÉ television. Soon after, they were commissioned for a four-show run on RTÉ 2 in September/October 2013. The first broadcast was scheduled to coincide with a vital World Cup qualifying match between Ireland and Austria, going on immediately after the live coverage of the game. Thereafter the show reverted to Wednesday nights. ''Second Captains Live'' was enthusiastically received by audiences, the

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper and online publication which is owned by Independent News & Media (INM), a subsidiary of Mediahuis. The newspaper version often includes glossy magazines. Traditionally a broadsheet new ...

calling it "sports broadcasting of the highest quality" and the

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

describing it as "ridiculously fabulous".

Format

''Second Captains Live'' is hosted by McDevitt, with Early and Murphy sharing co-hosting duties. Mark Horgan is the series producer, with Hick acting as producer and making some on-screen appearances. The show is divided into three parts – the first part is a panel discussion between three current or former sports stars on a particular topic broadly analogous to the big news of that week and touching on their own experiences. The second part is an interview with a main guest (e.g. Ronan O'Gara on episode 1). The third part is a quiz between one of the guests and Murphy, called ''Challenge Second Captains'', playing on Ciaran's previous experiences of competing on old RTÉ school quiz-shows

Blackboard Jungle ''Blackboard Jungle'' is a 1955 American social drama film about an English teacher in an interracial inner-city school, based on the 1954 novel ''The Blackboard Jungle'' by Evan Hunter and adapted for the screen and directed by Richard Brooks. I ...

and

Gridlock Gridlock is a form of traffic congestion where "continuous queues of vehicles block an entire network of intersecting streets, bringing traffic in all directions to a complete standstill". The term originates from a situation possible in a grid ...

. The show is influenced by Fantasy Football League, TFI Friday and Nighthawks. The show is shot completely live in front of a studio audience, and in between the interviews, RTÉ archive is used extensively, often for comedic purposes. It is described on the RTÉ website as "the place in Irish television where sport meets entertainment". ''Second Captains Live'' is directed by Maurice Linnane, whose work also includes the popular music programme Other Voices.

Guests

Guests on series one included O'Gara, Sonia O'Sullivan, Colm Cooper,

Mark Rohan Mark Rohan (born 26 July 1981) is an Irish cyclist, and a former Gaelic football and wheelchair basketball player. He competes in the H1 disability sport classification as he has been paralysed from the chest down since a spinal cord injury in ...

, Derval O'Rourke,

Jerry Flannery Jeremiah Paul Flannery (born 17 October 1978) is a former Irish rugby union player and current coach. During his playing career, Flannery, a hooker, played for Munster and Ireland, before being forced to retire in March 2012 due to injury prob ...

Donal Óg Cusack Donald is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name ''Dòmhnall''.. This comes from the Proto-Celtic *''Dumno-ualos'' ("world-ruler" or "world-wielder"). The final -''d'' in ''Donald'' is partly derived from a misinterpretation of the ...

and staples from the Irish Times shows such as Horgan, Sadlier and McConville.

The Good Wall

''The Good Wall'' is a feature on the show where the top ten Irish sportspeople of all-time are chosen by ''Second Captains'' contributors. Each week, the programmes major guests can make one change to the existing wall, ''and'' introduce a new sportsperson to the top ten. O'Gara made a stir when he removed former team-mate O'Driscoll from the top spot in show 1. O'Sullivan subsequently removed Irish golfer Pádraig Harrington from the wall entirely.

References

External links

RTE Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Captains Live 2013 Irish television series debuts RTÉ original programming