ormondbannerman
County: Clare
Posts: 8142

. If there was a bias in RTE and the media at large then why is there going to be less rugby on irish screens this season? Answer that
There will be no live coverage or highlights of the provinces games on RTE this season. RTE will only be showing international rugby for the next few seasons.
The Ladies team gets plenty of coverage but how many sides can you compare them to? Can you compare a national side to an inter county side?
When was the last time the FAI and leading players, the soccer media were calling for games to be shown in a similar fashion as there was for the womens rugby side to have games covered.

Ormond there is less championship hurling and football being shown on RTE TV this year . The Premiership programme was taken off the screens of RTE TV last year. Two words my friend-satellite tv.

I compared the ladies rugby team with a comparable team. That team was the ladies soccer team who are in the throes of a World Cup qualifying campaign that involves 6 teams. Remember ladies soccer caters for significantly more under age and adult players than does ladies rugby. 12 ladies rugby internationals have been broadcast live and in full on national radio or tv over the last 18 months. Not one single ladies soccer international has been broadcast in that time. Can you ever remember a ladies soccer international being broadcast ?That is not down to PROs and their work. It is down to the mindset that permeates both print and broadcast journalism in this country. Who is current Head of Sport in RTE and what is his sport of choice ? Who were the father and son who preceeded him and what was their sport of choice. Not even you could deny the bias in The Irish Times. Independent News and Media are a little more balanced in their coverage

Where are all the Ladies GAA top committee people calling for more coverage? Coughlan gets her column at a time of rugby dominance in everything at the time of the 6 nations. Have any newspapers ever looked to players from various counties to write a diary during the summer
Rugby is a worldwide sport and fast growing at that. I did only mention 1 country in asia but could have mentioned any number of other countries like any of those who compete in the Asian 5 nations like South Korea, Kazakstan and Arabian Gulf(which represents UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia)
There is considerable enough numbers playing. I don't have playing figures off top of my head and am not going to look them up. You can do it if you want
There is also several levels of competition below the top division of the European nations cup(6nations b) with 4/5 divisions below the top division.
Look at the IRB website which has playing figures for all countries. Im not looking up the figures as you can do it yourself


Your argument in relation to lobbying RTE for coverage is tired and has been blown out of the water .It's down to a biased MINDSET !!

You forgot to include Georgia who are one of the few countries in Asia who can play rugby to some standard. The other countries you mention in both Europe and Asia are akin to Irish emigrants playing Gaelic Games abroad. That's not competitive international sport as we understand it. Basketball, Hockey, Boxing, Volleyball, tennis, golf, cycling, aquatic sports, rowing, gymnastics etc etc are world wide sports in the accepted sense.

Greengrass (Louth) - Posts: 6183 - 22/08/2014 15:30:43    1640518

I do not agree with ormand on much but I think he is right on this the ladies rugby were in a world cup semi final ,I do not see many more womens sorts getting to that stage , The womens soccer team at senior level have never even qualifiesd for a major championship and to be fair the U19 got decent coverage on the news last month I would imagine that the coverage of womens rugby is part of the television deal with RTE . I am not a rugby man but I do not see any bias in the media towards it ,the national team are competing at the top level in a sport that is played extensively all over the world let it ba at different levels .
GAA is a local sport and in my opinion gets more media coverage than it actually deserves as I said before most GAA people seem to think that the media should not cover any other sport than GAA but the reallity is that there are more people imterested in Liverpool and Man united that Kerry and Mayo .

tinrylandman (Carlow) - Posts: 387 - 22/08/2014 16:43:18    1640577

22/08/2014 15:30:43 Greengrass
Ormond there is less championship hurling and football being shown on RTE TV this year . The Premiership programme was taken off the screens of RTE TV last year. Two words my friend-satellite tv.
I compared the ladies rugby team with a comparable team. That team was the ladies soccer team who are in the throes of a World Cup qualifying campaign that involves 6 teams. Remember ladies soccer caters for significantly more under age and adult players than does ladies rugby. 12 ladies rugby internationals have been broadcast live and in full on national radio or tv over the last 18 months. Not one single ladies soccer international has been broadcast in that time. Can you ever remember a ladies soccer international being broadcast ?That is not down to PROs and their work. It is down to the mindset that permeates both print and broadcast journalism in this country. Who is current Head of Sport in RTE and what is his sport of choice ? Who were the father and son who preceeded him and what was their sport of choice. Not even you could deny the bias in The Irish Times. Independent News and Media are a little more balanced in their coverageWhere are all in the FAI and the media calling for more coverage of ladies soccer? It isn't down to media mindset and even if it was you cant knock rugby for getting games covered.
And we're back to supposed bias in media. How typical....
22/08/2014 15:30:43 Greengrass
Your argument in relation to lobbying RTE for coverage is tired and has been blown out of the water .It's down to a biased MINDSET !!

You forgot to include Georgia who are one of the few countries in Asia who can play rugby to some standard. The other countries you mention in both Europe and Asia are akin to Irish emigrants playing Gaelic Games abroad. That's not competitive international sport as we understand it. Basketball, Hockey, Boxing, Volleyball, tennis, golf, cycling, aquatic sports, rowing, gymnastics etc etc are world wide sports in the accepted sense. By this argument hurling isn't an irish sport considering the numbers played across the country. My argument is not tired with regard to lobbying RTE. You cant whinge, moan and bitch about RTEs coverage or lack of coverage yet say they are biased and not good enough and lobbying them is no good.
Saying those countries are not competitive international sport is very ignorant of the standards in those countries.
I didn't include Georgia as in sporting terms they play in Europe. They play in the European nations cup, when qualifying for world cup they play in Europe.

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 22/08/2014 17:08:36    1640593

Why should the Irish media only cater for international sports? I reckon they should cover irish sports first considering they are irish. If Rugby was played as much as womans soccer, camogie and football i'd agree but it's not. It's a very niche sport in ireland unlike the mens code and gets 10 times the coverage it deserves. It's great it gets it but not at the cost of the more popular sports.

Jack_Goff (Meath) - Posts: 2920 - 22/08/2014 17:29:24    1640610

22/08/2014 17:29:24 Jack_Goff
Why should the Irish media only cater for international sports? I reckon they should cover irish sports first considering they are irish. If Rugby was played as much as womans soccer, camogie and football i'd agree but it's not. It's a very niche sport in ireland unlike the mens code and gets 10 times the coverage it deserves. It's great it gets it but not at the cost of the more popular sports. Who said irish media should only cater for international sports?
What do you consider an irish sport? Women's rugby got its coverage on the back of great successes and how do you define what is coverage it deserves?
Women's rugby doesn't get coverage at the expanse of other female sports. Again where are all the players/coaches/supporters/media/committee people etc involved in camogie/ladies football/ladies soccer calling for more coverage in print and tv/radio?

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 22/08/2014 17:43:16    1640623

There has been more coverage of women's rugby in the past 18 months because they have been very successful in that period , the same would have happen for the Irish women's soccer if they were as successful. You may have also noticed a spike in coverage of women's sailing and boxing when Irish women were doing very well in the Olympics. Irish sports people doing well gets coverage, it's not a difficult concept to grasp

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4656 - 22/08/2014 17:48:03    1640628

Ormond answer the questions about the current and former Heads of Sport in RTE. I'm not knocking ladies rugby , I'm highlighting the media bias in their favour. You asked the question was a single lady soccer player, gaelic footballer or camogie player approached about writing a dedicated column during their playing season. I think we all know the answer to that don't we. You have at no stage answered the question with regards to why 12 ladies rugby internationals have been broadcast in full in the last 18 months and not one ladies soccer international has been broadcast and spare me the rubbish about RTE not being asked. They are a public service broadcaster with a public service remit funded by the licence payer. Nor have you addressed the obvious bias in The Irish Times. Nor have you explained the colossal levels of coverage in the newspapers of The Leinster Schools Cup. Why so much coverage for a schools sporting competition ? No other schools sport competition gets that level of coverage . Media bias Ormond, media bias.

Your point about hurling is an interesting one and I would have to agree that Hurling is somewhat similar to rugby in that there are only a handful of counties who form an elite and there are many more who cannot compete at the highest level. that is why there are tiers of competition in hurling too. You could have phrased your point better. To say hurling is not an Irish sport is wrong.Rugby in most European countries is exactly the same as Gaelic Games in most European countries. It is played by enthusiastic people who are competitive amongst themselves but who could not hope to compete at a reasonable level. You know this well. That is what constitutes an international sport. There are many , many sports that have very significant numbers of participants who can compete at the highest level against each other. Rugby does not have that. And as I have said many times before it is a game I played and watch and enjoy thoroughly.

Greengrass (Louth) - Posts: 6183 - 22/08/2014 17:56:09    1640635

22/08/2014 17:56:09 Greengrass
Ormond answer the questions about the current and former Heads of Sport in RTE. I'm not knocking ladies rugby , I'm highlighting the media bias in their favour. You asked the question was a single lady soccer player, gaelic footballer or camogie player approached about writing a dedicated column during their playing season. I think we all know the answer to that don't we. You have at no stage answered the question with regards to why 12 ladies rugby internationals have been broadcast in full in the last 18 months and not one ladies soccer international has been broadcast and spare me the rubbish about RTE not being asked. They are a public service broadcaster with a public service remit funded by the licence payer. Nor have you addressed the obvious bias in The Irish Times. Nor have you explained the colossal levels of coverage in the newspapers of The Leinster Schools Cup. Why so much coverage for a schools sporting competition ? No other schools sport competition gets that level of coverage . Media bias Ormond, media bias.The Schools Cups in rugby(isn't just Leinster) get such coverage as the coverage sells papers. Just because the former heads of sport were involved in rugby doesn't mean they have a bias against other sports in favour of rugby. England has much more of an issue with class and sport and doesn't have issues regarding sport and coverage.
No we don't know the answer if a single female player has been asked but
I don't know why womens rugby has had so much coverage compared to other sports but there was huge pr surrounding their lack of coverage especially considering their successes. Where have all the calls for womens soccer and gaelic as well as camogie to be covered more?
There isn't an obvious bias in Irish Times. If there was then why was there so many articles over the years from Tom Humphries etc knocking rugby. Schools Cups gets so much coverage as it sells papers. Schools Cups are in many ways the equivalent of top minor I/COUNTY sides as they get the equivalent level of coverage.
22/08/2014 17:56:09
Greengrass
Your point about hurling is an interesting one and I would have to agree that Hurling is somewhat similar to rugby in that there are only a handful of counties who form an elite and there are many more who cannot compete at the highest level. that is why there are tiers of competition in hurling too. You could have phrased your point better. To say hurling is not an Irish sport is wrong.Rugby in most European countries is exactly the same as Gaelic Games in most European countries. It is played by enthusiastic people who are competitive amongst themselves but who could not hope to compete at a reasonable level. You know this well. That is what constitutes an international sport. There are many , many sports that have very significant numbers of participants who can compete at the highest level against each other. Rugby does not have that. And as I have said many times before it is a game I played and watch and enjoy thoroughly. Rugby is much bigger in all European countries than gaelic and not exactly the same. That is very ignorant. Gaelic Games is still virtually everywhere totally dominated by irish ex pats. That is not the case with rugby where its not primarily british ex pats and huge numbers of natives play whether you are talking about Spain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden etc
Rugby is very much an international sport and trying to see it is not is wumming. Rugby does have significant numbers who compete at highest levels. The top tier of ENC is v high standard and levels below that are forever improving like in Sweden where Munster have sent several coaches over the year including Colm McMahon who is now an elite development officer with responsibility for the Munster academy. Swedens national underage sides have also came to Ireland for matches and to learn from munster etc

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 22/08/2014 18:38:25    1640657

You cant get away from the facts Ormond. I notice from rtewatch on twitter that despite the fact we are reaching the culmination of the GAA season with the All Ireland football Semi Final and Rugby being in its off season, both get covered twice this week on the Six One News. Indeed Jonathan Sextons new contract with Racing Metro got equal billing today with Martys piece on the Kerry team. Rte is clearly rugby focused, but I get a sense that finally more GAA sports followers are getting rightfully angry about the blatant injustice of this behaviour by our citizen funded broadcasting corporation.

mod (Mayo) - Posts: 859 - 22/08/2014 18:43:29    1640663

Had a look at the Irish Times to check out this bias being claimed here - Front page right under paper title 'Kerry v Mayo countdown' with picture of a couple of players, the Sports section has front page a huge photo of Andy Moran & Tomas O'Se and big feature on the match. Pages 2 & 3 are then also solely devoted to GAA. It's hard to match the outlandish claims of bias being made here with the actual reality.

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4656 - 23/08/2014 11:21:18    1640773

Bad Monkey: You cannot make a generalisation based on one day of a newspapers output, well you can but it doesn't have much validity. The IT is a commercial outfit and it is not funded by licence payers so it can be as biased as it likes. I believe many will disagree with your assertion re IT bias. Indeed for many years it refused to cover GAA. RTE is a different matter it is a national broadcaster it must reflect the interests of the licence payers, it must not act as the PR wing of any sport. the facts clearly point towards bias by RTE on an Olympian scale. GAA followers are rightly annoyed about this.

mod (Mayo) - Posts: 859 - 23/08/2014 14:07:24    1640836

you have not offered any facts , just underlined and bolded the word - that doesnt make it any more true ;) During what period did the Irish Times refuse to cover GAA ? They have certainly changed their tune judging by todays edition.

RTE are the national broadcaster so will show Irish people competing in international events - as this is national sports news. The GAA suffer slightly as there is no international dimension to their games so for any game there are people in 30 counties with no direct vested interest, making it less appealing to a national broadcaster. For an international Irish team / sports person is of interest to every sports minded person especially when doing well, which is why the Irish womens rugby got more coverage in the past year. Lots of conspiracy theories but these are the simple facts ;)

I do think that ladies football and camogie should get more coverage, however in general the GAA gets more than its fair share of coverage - which is great because I love it!

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4656 - 23/08/2014 15:02:06    1640849

No point complaining about IT coverage of football and hurling. The IT is a private company simply doing what it says on the tin, catering first and foremost for its own constituency, middle class southsiders and their equivalents in every town in the country. The IT provides in depth coverage of rugby (at all levels), soccer, golf, cricket (today's Senior Cup Final received more coverage than the quarter finals of the most popular women's competition in the entire country) and racing. Why should that surprise anyone? Football and hurling will always be given extensive coverage when the above mentioned are quiet, as today. Even so the front of Sports Weekend still manages to give equal coverage to the Kerry Mayo game and a manufactured story about Johnny Sexton's possible future. Once the hurling and football finals are over matters will return to normal. Minimal coverage of football and hurling. Just enough to keep the natives quiet.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 23/08/2014 15:33:16    1640862

22/08/2014 18:43:29 mod
You cant get away from the facts Ormond. I notice from rtewatch on twitter that despite the fact we are reaching the culmination of the GAA season with the All Ireland football Semi Final and Rugby being in its off season, both get covered twice this week on the Six One News. Indeed Jonathan Sextons new contract with Racing Metro got equal billing today with Martys piece on the Kerry team. Rte is clearly rugby focused, but I get a sense that finally more GAA sports followers are getting rightfully angry about the blatant injustice of this behaviour by our citizen funded broadcasting corporation. Rugby isn't in its off season now. Sexton's contract offer is big news. Why no criticism of all the coverage soccer gets and its of English clubs with few to no irish players involved
RTE is not rugby focused. If it was it wouldn't be reducing the amount of games shown for the upcoming season compared to last season
23/08/2014 14:07:24 mod
Bad Monkey: You cannot make a generalisation based on one day of a newspapers output, well you can but it doesn't have much validity. The IT is a commercial outfit and it is not funded by licence payers so it can be as biased as it likes. I believe many will disagree with your assertion re IT bias. Indeed for many years it refused to cover GAA. RTE is a different matter it is a national broadcaster it must reflect the interests of the licence payers, it must not act as the PR wing of any sport. the facts clearly point towards bias by RTE on an Olympian scale. GAA followers are rightly annoyed about this. Why don't GAA followers do something about it then?
RTE is not the PR wing of any sport. If it was it would only cater for one sport to the detriment of all others yet hurling and gaelic combined get way more coverage than any other sport.
23/08/2014 15:02:06 bad.monkey
you have not offered any facts , just underlined and bolded the word - that doesnt make it any more true ;) During what period did the Irish Times refuse to cover GAA ? They have certainly changed their tune judging by todays edition.
RTE are the national broadcaster so will show Irish people competing in international events - as this is national sports news. The GAA suffer slightly as there is no international dimension to their games so for any game there are people in 30 counties with no direct vested interest, making it less appealing to a national broadcaster. For an international Irish team / sports person is of interest to every sports minded person especially when doing well, which is why the Irish womens rugby got more coverage in the past year. Lots of conspiracy theories but these are the simple facts ;)
I do think that ladies football and camogie should get more coverage, however in general the GAA gets more than its fair share of coverage - which is great because I love it! +1

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 23/08/2014 15:47:18    1640864

There was one game of GAA that was of any signicance last week ,what do GAA people propose RTE sporTs news lead with each day , there was nothing happening really maybe the naming of the teams but even that can be taken with a pinch of salt , are more people interested in Johnny Sexton moving back to Leinster or what is happening at the Mayo training session ,I would think Johnny Sexton wins hands down .

tinrylandman (Carlow) - Posts: 387 - 25/08/2014 14:49:16    1641751

Fascinating article in Sunday Indo about the legal implications of violence in the National Hockey League. The odd thing about it is that the author a lecturer in Queen's uses the example of a professional North American sports body to specifically 'warn' the GAA and no other named sports body to clean up its act. He even goes so far as to make a bizarre reference to an underage hurling match in Cork. He could have mentioned ice hockey violence in Belfast or one of the regular punch ups in the Top 14 but no, he decided to single out the GAA in Cork (a long way from South Belfast). Why? Could it be anything to do with amateur players not having the financial resources to fight back against these selective attacks. The GAA and it's players are regarded as soft touches. Can't say anything derogatory about the professionals though can we! Glad to see genuine Football and hurling fans are beginning to wake up to this kind of media manipulation.

mediaman (Antrim) - Posts: 355 - 25/08/2014 20:54:52    1642012

Bad Monkey: I give loads of facts but you just ignore them. Take todays Six O'clock sports segment. After yesterdays thrilling spectacle in Croke Park RTE true to form decided to focus on the negative (i.e. controversy of moving game to Limerick0. They produced 2 people (one Mayo and one Kerry advocating move from Limerick) and one explaining why it should be there. The video footage accompanying it was telling, that didn't show any scores a match that yielded 2 goals 32 points contenting themselves with video teams getting on the pitch and leaving it. Then contrast that with the Rugby non story of Sexton signing a contract with Leinster which was accompanied with video of one try and more game footage. What image are they trying to project of (a) rugby and (b) Gaelic Football.
The GAA magazine programme on Fri which was previewing the Mayo v Kerry match had a significant portion devoted to Cora Staunton playing Rugby, what was that about? Isn't it strange that our greatest GAA Ladies stars only exposure on RTE this year was one with her playing rugby.
Finally down to the stats Rugby has been mentioned 106 times (all but one positive) and Gaelic football and hurling camogie etc has got 93 mentions (many negative).

mod (Mayo) - Posts: 859 - 25/08/2014 21:16:39    1642020

They showed the match live and then had a highlights show on it that night!!. I mean how many times do they have to show it for you to be happy?! The main talking point in GAA today - have a looks at all the posts today - was where the replay will be, so RTE reported on it - it is the news ie events that happened today.

Mediaman surely a story highlighting the possible legal implications of violence for amateur players is not attacking them but actually protecting them.

bad.monkey (USA) - Posts: 4656 - 25/08/2014 21:29:28    1642031

Rugby is much bigger in all European countries than gaelic and not exactly the same. That is very ignorant. Gaelic Games is still virtually everywhere totally dominated by irish ex pats. That is not the case with rugby where its not primarily british ex pats and huge numbers of natives play whether you are talking about Spain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden etc
Rugby is very much an international sport and trying to see it is not is wumming. Rugby does have significant numbers who compete at highest levels. The top tier of ENC is v high standard and levels below that are forever improving like in Sweden where Munster have sent several coaches over the year including Colm McMahon who is now an elite development officer with responsibility for the Munster academy. Swedens national underage sides have also came to Ireland for matches and to learn from munster etc

You're missing the point Ormond. The point I was making is that Gaelic Games teams from European countries can't possibly compete with teams at the highest level here. The same is true of rugby. Most of those teams you mention are a million miles behind the top teams. You say huge numbers of locals play rugby in counties like Spain, Belgium etc. I was in Madrid for the Champions League Final in 2010. On the day of the final the play offs were on in England. So too was The Heineken Cup Final. I think that Heineken Cup Final featured two French teams. We went to an Irish bar before going to the match. Both the play offs and The Heineken Cup Final were being broadcast and both could be seen in the pub. Quite a large group of people watched the play offs. Not one single Spanish person watched the Heineken Cup Final. None of them had the slightest interest. On the streets there wasn't a sign anywhere of The Heineken Cup Final. It was a non event. Rugby is an international sport but it is not a true world sport like soccer, basketball, boxing, tennis etc.

Greengrass (Louth) - Posts: 6183 - 26/08/2014 12:26:09    1642186

Rugby is much bigger in all European countries than gaelic and not exactly the same. That is very ignorant. Gaelic Games is still virtually everywhere totally dominated by irish ex pats. That is not the case with rugby where its not primarily british ex pats and huge numbers of natives play whether you are talking about Spain, Belgium, Germany, Sweden etc
Rugby is very much an international sport and trying to see it is not is wumming. Rugby does have significant numbers who compete at highest levels. The top tier of ENC is v high standard and levels below that are forever improving like in Sweden where Munster have sent several coaches over the year including Colm McMahon who is now an elite development officer with responsibility for the Munster academy. Swedens national underage sides have also came to Ireland for matches and to learn from munster etc

26/08/2014 12:26:09 Greengrass
You're missing the point Ormond. The point I was making is that Gaelic Games teams from European countries can't possibly compete with teams at the highest level here. The same is true of rugby. Most of those teams you mention are a million miles behind the top teams. You say huge numbers of locals play rugby in counties like Spain, Belgium etc. I was in Madrid for the Champions League Final in 2010. On the day of the final the play offs were on in England. So too was The Heineken Cup Final. I think that Heineken Cup Final featured two French teams. We went to an Irish bar before going to the match. Both the play offs and The Heineken Cup Final were being broadcast and both could be seen in the pub. Quite a large group of people watched the play offs. Not one single Spanish person watched the Heineken Cup Final. None of them had the slightest interest. On the streets there wasn't a sign anywhere of The Heineken Cup Final. It was a non event. Rugby is an international sport but it is not a true world sport like soccer, basketball, boxing, tennis etc. What point am I missing?
The same is not true in rugby. Rugby doesn't have the large following of soccer but it is a true worldwide sport. A significant number of sides ive mentioned have competed and will in future compete with top teams especially as funding for rugby increases as rugby albeit in the 7s format enters the Olympics.

ormondbannerman (Clare) - Posts: 13473 - 26/08/2014 12:47:09    1642198