Second Captains Live is an Irish live topical sports and entertainment show produced and presented by Second Captains that first aired on RTÉ Twotelevision 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. 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 calling it "sports broadcasting of the highest quality" and the Irish Times 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. 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 and Gridlock. 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.
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.
