The hurlers of Galway and Kilkenny put on a show in Sydney.
But it wasn’t the type of show a lot of GAA folk wanted to see.
Rather than the glitz and glamour of a fairly meaningless challenge match on the other side of the world, believe it or not, it was club games in wet and windy GAA grounds from Newbridge to Cork they wanted to be watching.
There’s glory in the grassroots.
The club championships are a beautiful thing at this time of the year as one county’s best take on another’s and the argument that the interest isn’t there is the greatest cod going.
https://twitter.com/Woolberto/status/1059099377006915584
GAA supporters are a fanatical breed and it’s only the blow-ins who don’t want to know about the club game. Those are few and far between you’d like to believe.
But instead of rounding up another great Sunday of club, the only highlights show on television in Ireland on Sunday night was a full hour of highlights of a dead rubber between Galway and Kilkenny in Spotless Stadium.
Never mind Spotless Stadium, GAA folk wanted Páirc Tailteann, they wanted Dr Hyde Park.
What a day it will be when the Gaa & RTE travel to the other end of the country rather than the world to promote hurling. #GAA
— UnOfficialGaa (@UnOfficialGaa) November 11, 2018
I am not watching highlights of a challenge match in hurling in November on mainstream tv!!
— Shane Brophy (@BrophShane) November 11, 2018
So RTE will Spare No Expense and go to the other End of the Earth to show a Mickey Mouse Challenge Game. Surely they'd be better off Showing County and Provensal Action. Or the Joe McDonagh Cup which they completely Ignored all year. Wild Geese Trophy. My Arse 😡
— Buff Egan (@buff_egan) November 11, 2018
It’s not only the club game that’s being largely ignored, aside from the trojan effort being made by TG4 to keep us entertained.
And so the GAA were lynched, from all angles on Sunday.
Some said that they were breaking their own rules by running competitions like these in the off-season. Others went for RTÉ and their lack of club coverage while Carlow hurler Paul Coady, perhaps irked by the fact that no Joe McDonagh, Rackard or Meagher game was shown live last year, criticised the GAA for spending so much money on a one-off competition like this.
“Two squads of 30+, 10+ management teams, referees, RTÉ panellist, almost 100 people say! 2k (flights, hotel) pp say so 200k… Who the fuck funds all this and if they have much cash to spare please send some down so we can try develop hurling in some counties before it’s dead,” he tweeted.
The Carlow man feels that money could be put to better use.
Beyond crying at this stage, it would just pure depress you 🙄!
For those few days in oz you've basically enough to pay 6 development officers wage for a full year 😓!— Paul Coady (@Paul_Coady10) November 11, 2018
Perhaps the time could be too.
