We need to sell hurling better if it’s to progress
FOR those who stayed up last Sunday night, the discussion on the future of hurling on League Sunday made for interesting viewing.
But, as is often the case, no sooner were the panellists getting into the nitty gritty of the issue than Joanne Cantwell unfortunately had to wind it up due to time constraints.
Westmeath manager Joe Fortune talked about the camera that broadcast the highlights of his side’s defeat to Limerick earlier that day.
Did he have a point? Yes. But with so many games across the country, you’re not going to have multiple cameras from optimal angles at all of them. Why? Money – or the lack of it.
I felt that last Sunday night was a prime example as to why it’s so difficult to develop hurling further.
For years, people have wondered why there is only one highlights show a week and, even at that, it was only a few minutes of action and a brief discussion.
There would be a chat show in itself around the games and GAA in general but, again, money is the main reason why a lot of the initiatives that RTE would like to see through just aren’t feasible right now.
It’s well documented that RTE is under financial pressure, but hopefully that will change at some point in the future, allowing more counties to be showcased on a more regular basis.
The cost of the Sunday night highlights show is colossal, with amount of people on air and all those behind the scenes, not to mention the equipment.
But hurling needs better promotion than is the case right now. Perhaps the remit of GAAGO could be broadened to pick up the slack and go beyond the top eight or nine counties.
It’d really be a shot in the arm for the games in counties like Westmeath, Antrim and Laois if kids could see their own players being interviewed and their games being analysed.
To be fair, The Saturday Game came on stream last year but there were only six shows in all, with it dependent on how many games were scheduled on a particular weekend. It was a starting point, at least.
But exposure is only one aspect of it. In Ireland, and particularly in the GAA, we are slow to break from tradition and embrace change but, in those counties that have only two or three clubs, would it be worth bringing maybe three of them together for a pan-county Championship? Surely it would raise the standard and, in time, hopethe
fully those counties would have enough clubs that they could revert to their own individual championship.
Elsewhere, nobody seems to know why Martin Fogarty (left) has not been replaced as national director of hurling.
The thing about developing hurling is that even with the perfect strategy and everyone pulling together, it’s still going to take years for it to really take off in counties where the game has no great history.
However, you have to start somewhere and be realistic about it too because it’s never going to be a 32-county game, similar to football.
But if we could go from nine or so competitive teams to, say, 16, wouldn’t that be progress?