No Paul Galvin on Sky’s GAA team

The name of Paul Galvin was conspicuous by its absence when Sky Sports announced their line-up for this summer's GAA coverage.

The former Kerry star had been expected to join the Sky team as they begin broadcasting GAA for the first time next month, with bookmakers installing him as one of the favourites to provide football analysis.

Instead, Peter Canavan and Paul Earley have been handed the punditry roles for football with Jamesie O'Connor and Irish Times hurling analyst Nicky English fulfilling the brief for hurling.

As expected, Rachel Wyse has been named as a presenter while the former Irish rugby league and union international Brian Carney will also front the channel's shows.

The GAA announced last month that Sky had secured rights to 20 games in this year’s All-Ireland football and hurling championships, replacing terrestrial broadcaster TV3.

Under the terms of the deal, the subscription-based will broadcast 14 matches exclusively while also securing non-exclusive rights to the All-Ireland hurling and football semi-finals and finals.

The exclusive games consist of eight Saturday evening matches in the All-Ireland qualifiers, two All-Ireland football championship quarter-finals, and two Saturday evening and two Sunday provincial championship games.

The first match broadcast on the channel will be the meeting of Kilkenny and Offaly in the Leinster hurling championship in Nowlan Park on June 7th.

The two quarter-finals shown by the channel will involved the Leinster and Ulster champions against teams coming through the qualifying series.