Colm Parkinson: The easy solution to fix League Sunday and keep smaller counties happy

"Here's an idea: With such quality clearly on show throughout the GAA leagues and public appetite to see/hear about the lower division games also, why not run a Division 3/4 league programme just like there's the Premier League & excellent Football League shows? Just a thought."

Above is a tweet from Ciaran Deely, London manager.

His team snatched a late draw against Limerick on Sunday but, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the goal on League Sunday.

The bottom divisions are being overlooked so much so that Carlow manager Turlough O'Brien's response to the idea of Division Three and Four highlights was sobering. "Well. it would be nice to even hear Division Four referred to on League Sunday," he said on The GAA Hour this week.

This has become a common theme on Mondays after the RTÉ highlights show. Divisions Two, Three and Four are routinely ignored in favour of the high-profile Division One games and the backlash is getting more and more severe.. But it’s a difficult one because I can see where both RTÉ and the disappointed supporters are coming from.

https://twitter.com/CiDeely/status/962974926192848896

Everyone wants to see their own county featured on the show and have Tomas Ó Sé or Seán Cavanagh give their opinion on them.

I’ll never forget the first time I was highlighted on The Sunday Game. It was after my debut in 1998 when I scored two points from wing back and Martin Carney spoke very highly of me. I still remember what he said because I watched it back so many times back then.

"At two crucial junctures in the game, Colm Parkinson sallied forward, as is his forte".

I met him at the All Stars that year and even thanked him!

Unfortunately, I haven’t watched my own county play one league game this year because, as much as I’d like to, The GAA Hour wouldn’t have many listeners if I ignored Dublin or Kerry in favour of Laois. Going to watch Laois would mean I miss out on the big games on television and they make up the bulk of the podcast on a Monday.

The sad reality is that Division Four teams - and my county is one of them - don’t get very much media attention because the interest just isn't there. Look at the attendances from the Division Four games last weekend. Approximately 1,400 supporters showed up in Dr Cullen Park, 700 in O’Moore Park and even less in Corrigan Park. When the interest isn’t really there in the respective counties, how can there be national interest?

You hear the same about ladies football all the time. They want media coverage despite hardly anyone going to watch their games. Attendances are the proof of the pudding. Division Four teams and LGFA will argue that there isn’t public interest because of the lack of media attention but it’s not the media’s duty to make a sport popular. It’s a difficult one really because you want to be respectful of the players involved who put in just as much effort as everyone else.

RTÉ don't help themselves though with their League Sunday programme and there has to be a happy medium somewhere. Whilst analysing lower division games might not be an option, there should be no excuse for not showing some highlights.

The solution

The ideal League Sunday format would show highlights and analysis from a couple of Division One games and then extended highlights from one game per the other three divisions with player or manager interviews included in the package.

That means Cavanagh or Ó Sé or whoever don't need to give their take on a game they haven't seen when it's just lip service anyway. The package would all be done from the stadium with the reporter, the highlights and the interviews filling it up. They've done this before randomly but always felt the need to come back and hear a tuppence worth from analysts who haven't even watched matches.

That would make up five games in total which is definitely achievable every week. The teams featured in the three lower divisions would be alternated every week so every team gets featured on the show at some point across the league. The talking points would still be defined by what is genuinely the national interest.

On The GAA Hour, I prefer not to bluff about games we didn’t see, and because we will miss the big games on television if we go to see the weaker counties, the only way to cover the lower divisions is to interview players and managers from those teams. Even though we have an hour long podcast twice a week, we still get criticised for not covering certain counties - usually from supporters of those counties - I’ve learned you’ll never please everyone.

A big problem people have with The Sunday Game during the summer is that the bulk of the evening programme focuses on the games most supporters have watched earlier that day on television. I often thought a solution to this would be a midweek magazine highlights show - this could focus in detail on these bigger games while the Sunday night show could provide highlights from games that were not on TV.

I recently learned RTÉ can’t have a magazine style highlight show because they only have highlight rights for a Sunday night. TG4 have highlight rights for Monday and eir Sport on a Wednesday.

I can’t understand why the GAA would restrict the highlights rights like this. What purpose does it serve?

Surely it’s in their interests to have as many TV shows, on as many stations, as possible promoting the game - in fact they should demand good quality shows as part of any rights package, not restrict it.

The interest is there for more coverage and, more importantly, every player should get to experience the wonderful feeling of Martin Carney singing their praises.