I have just watched the six news on RTE ONE and i was waiting for the sports news as there are seven Gaelic games on over the weekend, two in leinster, one in ulster, three in Munster and one in Connaght. First up on the news was the team for the Irish rugby friendly, then there was news of the irfu being against the free to air proposal, then there was news of horse racing, then tennis and then the last news item was the news that the camogie finals are all going to be played on the one day in Croke park. Obviously no news at all about the 14 Gaelic teams playing this weekend.

Louth Gael (Louth) - Posts: 1227 - 02/06/2010 19:00:26    665928

Are you suprised ? I have been on here before about RTE's coverage of GAA. Its the poor relation of rugby and soccer in Donnybrook.

seanie08 (Monaghan) - Posts: 1880 - 02/06/2010 19:24:43    665974

I take your point but in fairness Team Managements tend to keep stum in the early part of the week prior to matches and not really available to the press and when teams are announced from Wed/Thurs night there will be plenty of coverage.
I would be very critical about some of RTE's coverage but I think they are not guilty in this instance.

The Sage (Monaghan) - Posts: 351 - 02/06/2010 19:40:06    665995

judging by the attendances for the championship outside munster it seems that very few people care and the new only reflects this. The GAA have hugely failed the championship and players by the unbelievable lack of promotion of the games, even GAA people on here on the Sean Og thread think GAA players should not talk to the media and yet they expect the media to promote their games. If the GAA and GAA dont seem to want their games promoted, why the hell would media do it???

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4649 - 02/06/2010 19:54:36    666009

it is up to the GAA to release GAA related news everyday of the week and let RTE pick up on it.

the Rugby PR gouys are masters at it. not a bulletin goes by without 'news' about someone injured in rugby, or a team selection, or press conference etc

mau_mau (Westmeath) - Posts: 75 - 02/06/2010 20:14:00    666037

I only ever watch RTE sports news if Evanne is on. She is seriously hot!!

dubupnorth (Dublin) - Posts: 1897 - 02/06/2010 20:32:20    666058

In the week of the Epsom Derby, it does not surprise me that RTE would have horse racing third or fourth on the list. Good thread Louth Gael.

At the end, they'll comment on markets like the Dow, the FTSE and NASDAQ but all us Irish sports fans want to know about is the Derby market.

Has the Coolmore money come? Who is Johnny riding? Is St. Nicholas Abbey running? Has anyone booked Fallon? Anyone to Chantilly on Sunday? These are questions the RTE news need to answer.

Loyal2TheRoyal (Meath) - Posts: 4522 - 02/06/2010 21:26:04    666135

It's a Wednesday, there'll be more coverage of the games over the next few days. The players are working away as well, it's not like Gaelic player's are professional's that are available for interview every day.

legendzxix (Kerry) - Posts: 8736 - 02/06/2010 21:48:51    666174

Getting back to the point The Sunday Game gives 6 hours to our games on a Sunday and RTE Radio does cover GAA pretty well. It's harsh to criticise their GAA coverage

Ulsterman (Antrim) - Posts: 9816 - 02/06/2010 21:56:29    666191

Reading the messages on this thread and several random things strike me.

RTE undoubtedly get into a lather over things like who is to manage Liverpool soccer team.
Surely the point is that there is nobody in Liverpool or anywhere else in that kingdom paying a licence fee to RTE. Similarly there is no one in Northern Ireland paying it either. At this point I must mention that currently as a 'Free State' resident I do have a licence.

Similarly RTE have been speculating and commentating endlessly on the composition of the shadow Irish rugby team and how they might play in a meaningless friendly.

We are also treated to updates on golf tournaments all over the world every day at very regular intervals. Do many people really want to know?

It would appear that the ethos of RTE Sport is a 'progressive' international one. A lot of the people covering sport in RTE would appear to have grown up in an Ireland where they never encountered the GAA and which is seen as an obscure minority sport which is an irritant to them and is merely to be tolerated. Having said all that the chief rugby pundit is a Brocagh man. It may also be the case that some of the GAA journalists in there are not strong enough or interested enough to push for more coverage.

There is not much international travel involved in covering GAA and hence the great enthusiasm for the 'Aussie Rules' experiment as it guarantees trips to Australia every couple of years.

A lot of northern posters are 'paranoid' and this i more obvious to me since moving to the southern end of the island. However, that dont mean there is no one out to get them. I think northern people dont understand that the people in the south love to talk about things at great length and give out and whinge. Very much like themselves except that northerners will follow up with actions. People in the south dont believe in action.

Would more competition help RTE to improve GAA coverage? Newstalk have been doing qute a bit on GAA in their evening show of late but they dont have rights to broadcast live. It might have been a better idea if the powers that be had given them rights for live coverage. I t must also be said that Newstalk, TV3 etc also seem to see themselves as English provincial broadcasters at times too, given their obsession with things like who is to mange Liverpool, the composition of the English soccer panel for the World Cup and whether Avram Grant will go to West Ham.

Maybe, as David Cameron is the only living person who is likely to do anything to bring about a 32 county Irish Republic, the BBC may be the best hope for GAA coverage.

BIG SACKS (Tyrone) - Posts: 1681 - 03/06/2010 10:21:02    666258

Very well said BIG SACKS, i agree with you there is definately people in RTE who would like to ignore the GAA altogether, i have met people like this and they somehow managed to grow up in an Ireland were Gaelic is viewed as a minority sport and are shocked when they here the figures which still prove it to be the biggest sport in the country. You are also right about their prefrential treatment to international sport. As of late i have heard many sports bulletins start with criket results, who is this for, is it an attempt by RTE to promote criket in this country, at times listening to Des cahill and Pat Kenny in the morning you would get the impression the country is criket mad.

Todays RTE sports headlines

1. Rory McIlroy credits Jack Nicklaus with helping him secure his breakthrough win in America, so would love nothing more than winning Nicklaus' own tournament this week.

2.Munster out-half Jeremy Manning is to move to Guinness Premiership side Newcastle Falcons.

3. West Ham announced this morning that Avram Grant has been appointed as their new manager on a four-year contract

Gaa news which is ignored.

Micko set for last hurrah with Wicklow
Sligo team to play Mayo in Saturday's Connacht SFC quarter-final
Mayo manager John O'Mahony will hand Connacht SFC debuts to four players against Sligo on Saturday

Louth Gael (Louth) - Posts: 1227 - 03/06/2010 11:46:12    666371

I can see that there are faults with RTE's coverage of GAA but I feel that it is up to the GAA to supply them with news.The GAA have proved that they are not capable of a good P.R. campaign in recent times by the lack of advertising for matches and also their poor handling ofthe new rules. Also there are vast amounts of people who would prefer to hear the racing news over the GAA news anyway.

maigh_eo (Mayo) - Posts: 1346 - 03/06/2010 12:07:20    666399

Bigsacks the coverage of the Donegal Down match was very good on BBC. Martin Mchugh was on I think and to be honest there was less whinging about the standard of football than there was on RTE anyway.

maigh_eo (Mayo) - Posts: 1346 - 03/06/2010 12:12:59    666405

On the RTE 6.01 news last Sunday they referred to Down as Derry in the brief highlights of the Donegal Down game. This shows disinterest and contempt for the GAA.

Tom1916 (Armagh) - Posts: 2001 - 03/06/2010 12:18:39    666410

Living in the UK i can't comment on the RTE coverage. But i disagree with the notion that it is up to the GAA to supply the news for RTE. All media outlets, tv and newspapers, make an effort to find / cover the news they want to cover. They don't sit around waiting for various governing bodies to telephone or email them with the latest headlines. Therefore, i disagree with the idea that it is the GAA's fault that the RTE coverage is not good.

Tongo (UK) - Posts: 1795 - 03/06/2010 12:20:24    666416

This morning's (and almost every morning for that matter, unless there's a brawl to discuss) Gaelic games coverage on Morning Ireland was a disgrace. I don't agree that it's the GAA's fault: after all, I'm sure Liverpool FC didn't have to ask RTE to cover the sacking of a manager. Likewise, it is up to the RTE sports journalists to notice that this upcoming weekend is the busiest in the championship so far. I also think that this lack of coverage contributes to smaller attendances - the "diehards" will travel anyhow, but the floating supporter will be influenced by hype gererated by the media.

football first (None) - Posts: 1259 - 03/06/2010 12:20:58    666417

RTE do a decent job in my opinion. Every weekend it is blanket coverage - two games this Saturday, two more on Sunday followed by the Sunday Game, and then another one on Monday.
It is as if unless a GAA item leads every news bulletin, then people think they should give out about their coverage. Often the RTE2 late news leads with a GAA team announcement later in the week.
On a Wednesday when an international rugby team is named and the World Cup is around the corner (which RTE have paid a lot of money to cover and are obviously going to plug heavily as a result), we can't harp on if GAA is not the top story of the day.
Sometime they do things well, sometimes they make a mess of things - but at times on here it is like as if people just like to put the boot into the national broadcaster.

Roger (Meath) - Posts: 480 - 03/06/2010 12:27:48    666431

Lads, there is nothing of news worth for RTE to broadcast during the week. Its really a weekend thing. They only thing that they could talk about is team selections, and we all know they never stay as announced.

Cork_boy (Cork) - Posts: 100 - 03/06/2010 12:37:36    666452

RTE have blanket GAA coverage every weekend on the tv and radio. Its ridiculous to suggest that they don't take it seriously. There are a lot of problems with their sports coverage (trying to get them to even give the score on a Connacht rugby game is one of them) but this is not one of them. Football is the biggest game in the country, but soccer and rugby are bigger than hurling. People have other interests, and if some sporting stories are bigger than non existent mid week GAA stories then are we supposed to bend over backwards to provide a preview of a match that only a couple of thousand people will bother going to anyway?

abhainn (Galway) - Posts: 1000 - 03/06/2010 12:43:30    666466

maigh_eo
County: Mayo
Posts: 1067

666447 Cavan_Slasher I don't see what is so surprising about that considering RTE is based in Donnybrook.

Just about to make that point myself, especially with the World Cup on the horizon and the Rugby friendlies around the corners it seems that GAA only exists on the weekends, and with the RTE boys having undoubtedly been brought up in South Co. Dublin it doesn't look like there will be much change until around August - after the first International at the new Lansdowne Road...

throw_it_over (Galway) - Posts: 769 - 03/06/2010 12:50:27    666472