If you were using a bewildering combination of social media, GAA+, RTÉ Radio 1 and TG4 to try follow the denouement of the National Football League last Sunday, you weren’t alone. The divisional finals are this weekend, but for most teams last weekend decided most of what’s important from their springs.
Kerry or Donegal will be the linear league champions after their Division 1 final, but the Division 3 final between Down and Wexford is even more impactful. That game will decide which one of them will play Sam Maguire football this summer, as long as a team from Division 3 or 4 doesn’t reach a provincial final.
With the traditional routes to that spoiler looking more congested this year than in previous seasons (a resurgent Cork and Kerry on opposite sides of the Munster draw, and Galway and Mayo/Roscommon on either side of the Connacht bracket), the winner can rightly feel upbeat about their chances of playing with the best 16 teams in the country if the Division 3 showpiece can be negotiated successfully.
Each final will be shown on TG4 next weekend in two double headers on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, as is only right. Why each of the four divisions didn’t finish in four dedicated, non-overlapping slots last weekend is my (by now, annual) question. The hurling leagues were given Saturday evening, but they were well and truly hidden by the football leagues, and finishing both codes on the same weekend was madness.
The drama that surrounded Wicklow and Longford, with London lurking, as Division 4 reached its customarily crazy finale should have been given centre stage. Instead, it was buried under a flurry of second-half updates from Division 2, with the big dogs of Division 1 limbering up as well.
The Division 2 game between Kildare and Louth was one of seven NFL fixtures televised or streamed live by TG4 on Sunday. Photograph: Grace Halton/Inpho
The Division 2 game between Kildare and Louth was one of seven NFL fixtures televised or streamed live by TG4 on Sunday. Photograph: Grace Halton/Inpho
Sunday’s TG4 coverage gave us a tantalising glimpse of how such a weekend could work, with their Sár-Domhnach offering bringing us updates from around the various grounds as the fixtures in Division 1 and 2 played out, as well as live coverage on TG4’s YouTube channel of all games from the top two divisions.
It was a lot of fun, even if more regular score updates without leaving the coverage of the main game) might have been a more seamless way to keep everyone informed. That’s only a minor quibble though. As ever, TG4 went above and beyond. Radio 1’s coverage was first-rate as well, and they were across all four divisions. But each division should have been given its time to shine.
The fact that you could watch eight games on Sunday only highlighted the lack of depth in coverage during the six preceding game weekends. The GAA TV landscape has now changed utterly, and the thrill of seeing your county on live television has been replaced with an expectation that you should be able to watch every game. It was extraordinary that of Galway’s 13 games in the hurling and football leagues. 10 of them were broadcast live – not every county is anywhere near as lucky.
It remains an inescapable fact that if you’re from Sligo you’ll be able to watch live coverage of more games in the Connacht minor and under-20 championships than you will from the senior team’s entire season, league and championship. The technology is there, but how we want to use it is an open debate.
The GAA recently released a streaming policy document which is freely available online. The issues at play included ambush sponsoring, quality control, and, most pressingly, cannibalisation of the regular GAA product on TV.
Sunday's Division 1 fixture between Armagh and Kerry was shown on GAA+, the GAA's woefully underused streaming service. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho
Sunday's Division 1 fixture between Armagh and Kerry was shown on GAA+, the GAA's woefully underused streaming service. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho
That’s what is stopping each county board from streaming their own intercounty games from the national league and championships. But how long will the public put up with that state of affairs, when they can often watch more games played by their intermediate club football team than their intercounty side? The GAA are in the streaming game themselves, with GAA+. It was heartening to see Kerry and Armagh shown on that platform on Sunday, but it is woefully underused during the league.
The amount of coverage last Sunday was an indication of how far the GAA on TV has come since the early days of The Sunday Game. I have a familial link to the programme through my uncle Jim Carney, who was the show’s first host, and who first came across Michael Lyster as the newly-installed rock music columnist at the Tuam Herald.
After news of his death broke on Sunday night, Jim told me Lyster had been a music lover his whole life, and that while talking to Dave Fanning on some long-forgotten music show revealed he first heard David Bowie while out cutting turf in the bog in Cloondahamper. It was an eternal line that featured in RTÉ’s beautiful tribute to him to mark his last All-Ireland final as host of The Sunday Game in 2018.
He presented The Sunday Game for 35 years. I think what really set him apart as a presenter was lasting all that time in charge of a massive show, while maintaining a keener appreciation than anyone that it was just a show. He took the work seriously, but he didn’t take the show too seriously. That has often been The Sunday Game’s Achilles heel, but it was never Michael’s. I know he’ll be sadly missed, and not just by his fellow north Galway man and predecessor.