RTÉ on the ball – but missed a trick

■ Stephen Alkin’s commentaries enhance RTÉ’s coverage of the World Cup. He has the essential and often neglected quality of perfect diction. His voice has energy but is informative, not obtrusive. His research is comprehensive and delivered at the appropriate moment. He makes you feel you are present at the match. Which is remarkable because he is sitting in a studio in RTÉ watching the same pictures as you and I are receiving on our television sets.

Having a monitor beside you can be an invaluable aid but it restricts the commentator to describing only the images the director provides. The RTÉ commentators generally do a fine job of suspending disbelief but there are occasional giveaways. “I think Germany are still down to 10 men,” is a guess rather than an observation, because the director has not provided a cut away showing an injured player receiving lengthy treatment off the pitch.

For RTÉ to provide coverage of all World Cup matches is a remarkable achievement for a small, national station with a restricted budget. It would not be financially viable if the commentaries came from Russia. RTÉ appears to hope that the expertise of its commentators will conceal the fact that they are Dublin based. That’s a potential negative. It would surely have been better to have declared up front that the station could cover all games because of these local services. A positive marketing opportunity missed.

Brian de Salvo Gorey, Co Wexford