Published on Friday 3 February 2012 17:28
RECENTLY I perused the RTE Aertel service (out of curiosity) to check if the results of the All-Ireland intermediate and junior hurling semi-finals were listed. I already knew the outcome of both.
On the previous day I attended a meeting in Croke Park with county PRO and IT Officers where criticism was voiced at the tardiness in updating the Aertel results service. It was not a surprise, therefore, to find the results of the two hurling games missing.
At the same time as I was perusing the service, mayhem was reigning in O’Moore Park at the junior club football All-Ireland semi-final. For well over a week now the airwaves and print media have gone into overdrive following the scenes from Portlaoise.
If only the RTE Aertel service received the same attention!
Not so long ago we depended on a graphical description of unsavoury incidents at games from people in attendance and the media. Nowadays anyone with a Smart Phone can capture an incident and have it uploaded on YouTube before they leave the ground.
Well in excess of 100,000 people have already seen the shenanigans from O’Moore Park on YouTube, and almost every national radio and TV presenter has used their programme to air an opinion, including the presenter’s own view.
The vast majority of those same presenters have little or no interest in the GAA. Sure, they have been to Croke Park, but usually as a guest of a music promoter to attend a concert. The best forensics would not be able to detect GAA DNA in their veins.
Let me say at the outset that the incident in Portlaoise was very serious and a dreadful blight on the GAA. It was inevitable and indeed understandable that it would receive major coverage in every media outlet.
But there was an amount of “jumping on the bandwagon” also. This is not a case of shooting the messenger. The media are fully entitled and, in fact, obliged to tell the story as it was, but the input from a few commentators was devoid of balance.
When one takes into account the number of games played annually, the number of serious incidents at GAA games is small. Any incident, though, is one too many and events such as those in Portlaoise must be condemned outright.
Comparisons with other sports are inevitable and rugby is regularly proffered as an example of a sport with a strong disciplinary ethic. We have seen raw physical exchanges by opposing players in rugby which can be every bit as contentious
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