Earlier this week on Off the Ball, Kerry great Mick O'Connell was on the show to mark his 80th birthday.

The Valentia Island native spoke to Ger Gilroy and Joe Molloy in what was a memorable, but at times, spiky interview.

O'Connell's exchanges with Gilroy and Molloy were written about in the Sunday Independent by former Derry footballer Joe Brolly, where he claimed the discussion "was a bit like Ant and Dec cross examining Seamus Heaney."

On Sunday's Off the Ball, during a review of the Sunday newspapers, Joe was joined by the recently-retired Monaghan footballer Dick Clerkin and Irish Examiner journalist and sports performance coach Kieran Shannon.

The topic of Brolly's piece was introduced, and while he added that he didn't particularly want to talk about it, Joe said it would be odd not to respond to what was written by the 1993 All-Ireland winner.

"Talking about this stuff - it just gives it oxygen. It's hard to know what to do with it really."

Clerkin went one step further, claiming Brolly's article had "done a disservice on what was a very good interview on a very intelligent person".

"It's not often that you see script or interviews on Mick O'Connell. People were denied something a wee bit better, on what was a very unique interview during the week. It was a possibly a wasted opportunity on Joe's part... [O'Connell] probably wouldn't have been overly impressed reading his name associated with that."

Throughout Brolly's article, quotes from Gilroy and Molloy's questions were used towards O'Connell but, despite that, Molloy stated the questions were attributed to the wrong person.

"Of the four times [Brolly] quotes me in the article, it's not me talking. How he can write that piece and put down these things about people that they're not even saying - I'm literally not saying those words. It gets through and it's published and no-one double-checks it and it's just there. A couple of hundred of thousand people read it. It's just odd."

Clerkin simply concluded that he felt the article was "a silly piece" and "possibly insulting towards Mick".

You can listen back to the full interview with Mick O'Connell below.