In all fairness its been the best Munster championship in years. The people and players all want the extra matches.
Those attendences can only be good for the game.
Iâll take your word for it. Out of the 8 matches played so far, the only 3 I saw, I also attended, the 3 that Waterford were in. 3 shit games, 3 shit atmospheres and 2 derisory attendances.
Of the other 5 matches, 3 were behind a paywall. I was out last Sunday and didnât see either of Clare c Cork or Tipperary v Limerick.
Were you at the Waterford - Limerick game in the first round?
Genuinely there was a great atmosphere at that. We had loads of Waterford people around us in the stand.
Not even a 100 posts in the Munster rugby thread re their final today and over 250 in the Joe McDonagh thread in relation to the Carlow Offaly game. Snigger.
Thatâs convenient
Itâs handy alright
The atmosphere both inside and outside TUSGG yesterday was electric, ââtwas like a throwback to full houses from the 80s and 90s, an iconic occasion all told.
It was a knockout. A novelty in the GAA Championship these days.
Thatâs it in a nutshell.
The last week has been unreal when there was some jeopardy over the games. All on free to air tv too.
The games arenât perfect standard wise. Teams are making plenty of mistakes but it only adds to the excitement of the game as well.
Theyâve managed to effectively finish Gaelic Football as a spectator sport within two years as well as ending hurling as a past time in places like Wexford.
Its some achievement in fairness and must have even exceeded the split season zealots wildest expectations.
If you go back through the history of anti rubby posting on TFK you will see the GAA are now making all the mistakes the anti rubby crew were frothing at the mouth about
Too many games, games behind paywall, level of injury through the roof, head hits etc etc
Great to see Minor and Under 20 all Irelandâs getting so much coverage yestersay rather than been an after thought in September.
Those games got much greater coverage in September. You donât get much higher of a profile than a 1:30pm start on senior All-Ireland final day. The provincial finals and All-Ireland semi-finals got exponentially greater coverage as they preceded senior games too, and the semi-finals had prime exposure before the senior semi-finals.
The under-21 final had marked out a nice little niche for itself on the weekend between the senior hurling and football finals and July midweek evenings were made for provincial under-21 hurling.
Yesterday the games clashed with live senior championship games on RTE and those championships up to now have been sidelined in terms of public exposure.
Last yearâs minor final was sandwiched in on the same weekend as the two senior semi-finals. The minor football final was in Roscommon on a Friday evening. I havenât a clue what the state of play is in this yearâs minor football championship, I think I half saw Dublin beat Kildare last week but I canât remember what round that was in or when that championship is scheduled to finish.
It really is remarkable.
I donât know how we do it but our participation & retention rates in the club are very, very good.
And weâve plenty of money to do what we want.
Itâs almost like the kids between 6 & 10 donât give a solitary fuck about when the All Ireland is played.
In fact the humans between 11 & 40 donât give a solitary fuck because they are more interested in playing themselves.
Itâs almost like if kids keep playing the games will survive and thrive.
And Wexford cat for 50 years.
But we should really be focussing on the people that donât actually play the games.
I think theyâre called âevent junkieâsâ
Theyâre called your core target audience.
Only in the GAA do people think itâs a good idea to alienate your core target audience. Only in the GAA do people think deliberate downsizing of your sports is a good idea.
Lads like @Appendage have decided for culture war reasons that it is a good thing that the GAA alienates its core target audience on some deluded notion that it will benefit non-competitive, non contact under-8s hurling.
Meanwhile football in Wexford is effectively dead and deluded simpletons are hanging onto a last day victory to avoid relegation over a Kilkenny team going through the motions, in front of 7 or 8k, as proof that everything is hunky dory with Wexford GAA.
The quasi-Premier League structure that is Munster hurling is papering over a hell of a lot of cracks in the GAA, meanwhile the split season zealots are like Bertie Ahern telling everybody to go and commit suicide.
Deluded doesnât even begin to describe it. Itâs like a religious cult.