Live

OTB Gold

06:00 PM-07:00 PM

OTB Gold
Advertisement
Golf

The Toughest Trade's Roberto Wallace reckons GAA would lose its "special effect" if it went pro

From the footage that first emerged from his experience with Breaffy, it appears as if forme...



The Toughest Trade's Rober...
Golf

The Toughest Trade's Roberto Wallace reckons GAA would lose its "special effect" if it went pro

From the footage that first emerged from his experience with Breaffy, it appears as if former Miami Dolphin and Tennessee Titan star Roberto Wallace enjoyed the switch to Gaelic football.

The 29-year-old was trading places with Mayo and Breaffy star Aidan O'Shea who went in the other direction to the USA to try his hand at American football as part of TV show The Toughest Trade

"Not at all," Wallace replied when Joe Molloy asked him if he had any awareness of Gaelic football before his agent gave him the call about the show.

"I had no clue that sport even existed and I mean that with the most respect."

He added that "at first I thought it was rugby, based on the uniform" until he saw footage of the ball being kicked - although he did think it looked a lot of fun from first viewing.

"In terms of the culture and the sport, the whole experience was wonderful. The people were great. They were receptive and I had a good time. It was much, much better than I expected," he described his time in Breaffy, Mayo.

As for American football skills that translated to a vastly different code, he felt the only one was catching the ball and he felt he held his own in the one match that he did play as part of the challenge.

And he was impressed by the dedication of GAA players within the amateur ethos.

He added that from his point of view "if the sport was to go pro that it would take something away some of that special effect out of it and it would become about money". 

The Toughest Trade airs on RTE2 at 9.55 tonight where we'll see how Roberto got on see Aidan O'Shea's NFL experience.

Last week saw Brendan Maher take up cricket in Australia, while Ashes winning former England bowler Steve Harmison played hurling in Tipperary.

Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!

Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.