There''s no arguing with you on that point fabio. You are bang on the money.

Greengrass (Louth) - Posts: 6193 - 14/11/2014 19:14:20    1672374

14/11/2014 14:25:31 hill16no1man
Ormond you continously say that rugby is big money for rte and that it has a licence to give its viewers what it wants
but i keep putting it to you each time
that obviously the gaa is big money for rte too if it brings in some of their largest tv ratings in the year
and the fact that gaa is the biggest sport in ireland surely means that if rte are not showing headlines from that sport
then they are not giveing their viewers what they want to see
Ormond you still cannot understand the simple fact that if the game is not part of a league cup or competition therfore it is a challenge match or friendly or test game whatever word you prefer to use nobody is quaetioning if its a good match or bad
just the fact that it is not a league cup or part of a competition Hill you don't understand the context of what tests are in rugby, its the same in cricket and other sports.
RTE do show big stories from the GAA.
Yes these games are not part of a direct competition but they are not "challenges". You are dismissing the importance of these games for each country by calling them challengs. That it isn't part of a competition doesn't diminish what the game is and you are totally dismissing what these games are.

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 14/11/2014 21:53:08    1672420

the recent match at the weekend is just an obvious comparison to make as as good a game as they can be..is is a non-competition related international match which at the end of the day doesnt matter a whole lot in the long run.....the bias can be quite sickening at times and the attempts to ignore it are laughable...for instance when ireland played france when the whole match being called off shambles went on..i imagine there was no issues with rescheduling things and giving it the full proper coverage that was warranted...rte simply going through the motions with their gaa coverage...hence why i cant understand why people have any issue with sky as at least they are trying to do something different

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 14/11/2014 21:54:08    1672421

Bad monkey you are wrong in your reply to hill about the coverage given to the all Ireland semi relay, rte gaa Friday preview programme only lasts half an hour unlike rte against the head which is an hour and five minutes long and bearing in mind that the Dublin/ Donegal semi was on that weekend it would be lucky if there was 10 mins preview on Friday evening. Tomorrows nothing game against Georgia is getting half an hour of a preview, plus about forty five minutes of a review, plus an hour and five minutes of against the head on Monday evening. Yesterday morning on morning Ireland half eight sports news gave as much coverage to a nothing rugby game two days away as to a vital soccer match taking place that evening. It should also be said that the big touring southern teams do not always send there best teams to Europe. Someone said it was because Ireland had beaten South Africa that it got so much media attention but given pass experience shows if Ireland had lost by 50 points to them it still would have gotten as much attention.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 15/11/2014 18:41:44    1672518

The coverage given to ladies sport is a good example of the attitude in Rte. For years Rte largely ignored it but when the decided to show some of course the decided to show rugby, in Ireland last game in the women's six nations when the were out of contention of winning the competition rte still sent out a commentator and a co-commentator plus whatever background people to the south of France to cover the game for tv, the also send a commentator plus a co-commentator plus background people to cover the game and broadcast it on drive time on a bank holiday Friday one of the important time slots for 2fm . Compare that to the coverage the gave to the biggest day in Ladies sport in Ireland, the only showed highlights with no co-commentator, had pre-recorded analysis on the side of the pitch with just one analysis who would not be one of the better known ladies player but she was given two and a half minutes to analysis one of the best come back wins croker has ever seen. Not one of the players was interviewed and the did not bother sending anyone to the team hotel which probably was only down the road from Rte. In the fact the only gaa related women rte interviewed that weekend was king Henry's wife where she was asked such vital questions such as where she met Henry and how good he is at the dishes. A number of women rugby players have turned up on Rte chat shows and on second captains i have not seen any ladies footballers been on these shows. Ormond i have complained before to Rte but only got back a bland corporate rely from some junior person, what's the point of wasting my or there time again.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 15/11/2014 19:01:23    1672526

15/11/2014 19:01:23 ROS1
The coverage given to ladies sport is a good example of the attitude in Rte. For years Rte largely ignored it but when the decided to show some of course the decided to show rugby, in Ireland last game in the women's six nations when the were out of contention of winning the competition rte still sent out a commentator and a co-commentator plus whatever background people to the south of France to cover the game for tv, the also send a commentator plus a co-commentator plus background people to cover the game and broadcast it on drive time on a bank holiday Friday one of the important time slots for 2fm . Compare that to the coverage the gave to the biggest day in Ladies sport in Ireland, the only showed highlights with no co-commentator, had pre-recorded analysis on the side of the pitch with just one analysis who would not be one of the better known ladies player but she was given two and a half minutes to analysis one of the best come back wins croker has ever seen. Not one of the players was interviewed and the did not bother sending anyone to the team hotel which probably was only down the road from Rte. In the fact the only gaa related women rte interviewed that weekend was king Henry's wife where she was asked such vital questions such as where she met Henry and how good he is at the dishes. A number of women rugby players have turned up on Rte chat shows and on second captains i have not seen any ladies footballers been on these shows. Ormond i have complained before to Rte but only got back a bland corporate rely from some junior person, what's the point of wasting my or there time again. Complain again as that's the only way you and the others that want change will get anything near change. They sent the staff to south of france as they had already committed to sending the staff to france befre it was known Ireland would be out of contention. they signed a contract for the entire tournament not until Ireland were out of contention.
Their has been some top ladies footballers, camogie players on 2nd captains over the series or two they've had. Don't have names off top of my head but certainly has been some of them represented

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 15/11/2014 19:20:46    1672537

Over 6,000 turned up to see the Ulster Dublin football friendly tonight. Hogan stand has a report. The BBC website has a report. But RTE? However RTE's aertel service does have full details of Romania v Japan in rugby.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 15/11/2014 20:15:07    1672544

What is the point of complaining Ormond some junior person who has zero responsibility for deciding what is shown will sent me back the same corporate rely. Just because the could show the game does not mean the have to, certainly the don't have to send two sets of commentary teams to the south of France to cover it, my main point was comparing the level of coverage ladies football gets to women's rugby. I have not seen any ladies footballers on it who were they? Did you dream it has you have a history of on here.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 15/11/2014 20:34:41    1672549

Complaints will fall on deaf ears in rte's sports department.
Its down to the person who is in charge.
He happens to be the voice of Irish rugby.
The match commentator ryle nugent

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 16/11/2014 10:29:47    1672572

Given what this thread is all about the RTE Sport website is currently carrying what can only be described as an astonishing article. The former Irish ladies rugby captain in an interview with RTE Sport is critical of the amount of TV coverage ladies rugby is getting at present. The article reports that 'she want's women's rugby to get as much TV coverage as men's.' She goes on to state that 'women's rugby still had to fight for coverage.' It's a totally surreal article but the big question is why did RTE decide to make a public issue of it in this way. Is it perhaps engineered to give RTE Sport an excuse for even more coverage of ladies rugby?

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 16/11/2014 11:43:02    1672576

To be fair mediaman you are selectively quoting there. She says that womens sport in general gets poor coverage, which is what many on here have also been saying. Of course it is ironic that a womens rugby player should raise this as it is the one female sport that gets coverage at least comparable to its participation figures (if these things can be quantified like that). The more interesting part of the article was her observations on the lack of criticism for the womens team when they completely flopped against England at the world cup. While I expect her views on coverage may be listened to by RTE I would suggest it will be a long time before her team gets any criticism from the D4 area. I still feel many of the reporters see women in field sport as a novelty (an attitude of 'isn't it great that they get out there and try despite being women') and so the participants are seen as being immune to criticism. If only they involved themselves with any of the ladies football or camogie teams throughout the country they would soon be set straight on that.

Soma (UK) - Posts: 2630 - 16/11/2014 12:48:26    1672584

Good post soma although women's rugby get more coverage then any other women's sport she has a point, she also has a point about the coverage given to Ireland exit in the world cup where the good beating the got against England was said as brave by media and you would have thought by watching Rte sport news that the had beaten France in the third fourth place off instead of losing it.at 25 to 2 on a Sunday afternoon in the top 20 stories on the Rte website do not include one Gaa story or does not mentions Ireland's only warm up game before Ireland's only International rules test next Saturday or the club games taking place in less then 20 minutes. Compare that to how much coverage is given to every friendly game the lions play even in some cases weeks before the tests matches it is quite ridiculous.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 16/11/2014 13:50:47    1672589

To be honest I don't think anybody has a problem with RTE showing rugby, especially when it comes to giving coverage to the women's rugby team.

The problem though is the completely unbalanced amount of coverage rugby gets in comparison to other more popular sports.

We've seen widespread coverage of the Women's World Cup and 6 Nations over the last year or so. Yet we're only being treated to two camogie matches a year; the intermediate and senior All Ireland finals (the junior final is lucky to get a couple of minutes worth of highlights on the Sunday Game) and no ladies football matches at all. Although to be fair it's probably for the best if TG4 retain the coverage of this as at least they do it justice with some very good coverage and promotional work, I'd be shocked if any of the women's rugby games had as high ratings as the last couple of All Ireland finals on TG4.

Credit to RTE because at least they're consistent when it comes to poor coverage of other female teams or sports stars. Bar the Olympics Katie Taylor barely gets a mention off them, while just last week Caroline Ryan (former bronze medalist at a world championship) put in some impressive performances at the Track World Cup in Mexico which warrants no mention at all from RTE. Martyn Irvine broke his collarbone at the same event which could make it hard for him to make Rio 2016 but despite winning medals at World Championship level over the last two years this too wasn't deemed worthy of any coverage.

As GAA fans it's understandable that we notice it when RTE doesn't give the games the coverage we feel they deserve. But once you open your eyes and see the bigger picture it becomes clear that the GAA isn't the only victim here.

If RTE done away with the favouritism and gave other sports a fairer level of coverage then there wouldn't be any problem. There's a lot of money in professional rugby in comparison to other sports on this island. RTE have also had to make a lot of cutbacks over the last few years, and the sports department certainly hasn't been immune from this. I'm sure there's no correlation or link here at all though.

Of course though emailing RTE and telling them this is the way to fix everything...

if_in_doubt (Kildare) - Posts: 3692 - 16/11/2014 15:13:18    1672601

If in doubt good post i have no problem with the amount of coverage rugby gets if other sports got the coverage the deserve this is not the case in Rte. There are a number of sports which use to get coverage but now get little or none, you make a good point about Katie Taylor as someone who is not a fan of boxing, i can still see how Rte is all talk about boxing for a couple of weeks every four years and then ignore it the rest of the time, the same could be said for horse jumping. At five to 2 today on the Rte website there was 10 rugby stories in the top 40 stories, while there was only three gaa stories in the top 100 stories. None of these stories was actually about upcoming matches one was about a death, one about retirements and another about the championship structure, in fact the Scotland Nz rugby match where nz played a weaker side got as many stories as Gaa did on the Rte website.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 16/11/2014 16:44:50    1672614

The RTE Sport website is currently carrying match reports on 6 highly competitive club football/hurling club in its Top 20 stories. That seems about right given the importance of these games to the country as a whole. Maybe someone in RTE is getting the message. No let up though. Keep monitoring.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 16/11/2014 17:53:00    1672632

14/11/2014 15:06:22 bennybunny
Different sports use different terminology and that terminology is not simply transferred from one sport to another. We have league and championship in GAA (intercounty). In club competitions we have championships run on league basis (in part) on leagues run on a knock-out basis toward the end (championship as we know it). In swimming, they have heats and gala events. In motor racing, they have qualifying rounds. In greyhound racing, they have cups, heats and just races. In boxing, they have bouts (there are so many belts -read 'cups'- you could hardly call them competitive). In rugby they have test matches. We don't have test matches in GAA. We might want to call them challenges (disparagingly or otherwise) but they are test matches. In rugby, test matches are important. Rugby people see them as important. If rugby people see them as important then who is anybody else to say that they are not? In GAA, we do not think challenge matches are important. Therefore, how can one logically equate something that is not deemed important (by those involved) to something that is deemed important (by those involved). The above is secondary to how RTE treat different sports. There are many valid points about shoddy GAA coverage that they give. Personally, I don't care because when I pick up the Evening Echo, the Southern Star, the Avondhu, the Examiner on Monday - I get wall to wall GAA coverage. Most of those outlets will have more column inches dedicated to Ballyhooley v Buttevant u14 CFL final than Ireland v South Africa. That's a very good post.. well done benny

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 16/11/2014 18:30:46    1672640

14/11/2014 15:28:40 hill16no1man
bennybunny but the reason the arguement about challenge games came up as because we are discussing the two sports and how rte treats them.
now you had an all ireland semi final and a rugby non competitive if that is more softer a term to use on the rugby boyos heart strings
so we have to use a comparison to relate both sports in how we are discussing them the fact that one match was the semi final of the biggest competition in the sport and the other was not part of any competition in the sport
shows the inequality by rte in how much air time they gave in the build up to both matches Hill it was an all Ireland semi final replay scheduled only short time ahead. There was another game on the following day and maybe RTE didn't want to push too much sport on the one weekend??
That doesn't show any inequality. The GAA presenters may also feel they only want that much air time. maybe?

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 16/11/2014 18:33:08    1672643

Not one mention of Ireland only warm up game to the international rules match only six days away on the tv sport news, compared to the coverage the gave to the nothing rugby game today, also no mention of the ladies football club all Ireland semi finals which were on today as well. Ormond your posts are getting more silly as you go on the can change there schedule if a game goes to extra time never mind when the are given 6 days notice, the sure as hell would not be worried about the amount of time given to sport if it was a rugby match and 2 games spread over 2 days is already over working anyone.

ros1 (Roscommon) - Posts: 1211 - 16/11/2014 19:11:43    1672652

it was scheduled a week ahead..plenty of time and like you said...an all ireland semi final...a huge game...one of the biggest of the year...do you think it didnt deserve the coverage?

fabio8 (USA) - Posts: 2182 - 16/11/2014 19:18:53    1672657

ormond
apart from this year
the all ireland football quarter finals draw takes place less than 6 days before the first of them games
nobody knew the dates times until the monday morning
yet rte were able to have their programme ready and move other scheaduled programmes to accomadate
in less time than this year's replay gave them.
I guarnatee you if a rugby semi final went to a replay, they would be on air for the same amount of time
the following weekend

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 16/11/2014 19:21:56    1672658