Irish media wonât criticise women or rugby so they are not going to be critical of the womenâs rugby team. Who, tbf, are doing ok at 7s which seems to be the priority
Maybe Iâm being overly cynical but they get held up as an example of what Irish ladies sport should be trying to aim for. And theyâre being hammered by the worst team in the competition. And meanwhile we have genuinely world class athletes who get a bit of a token gesture of coverage.
We had Sarah Lavin in the World Indoor Hurdles finals a few weeks back and the ladies 4x400m team also in the final. Sharlene Mawdsley also in the 400m final but for a dodgy DQ. Genuinely World Class athletes who probably wonât be seen on Irish TV again until the Euros in June despite various events theyâll run at (and thatâs not even before we begin to consider the likes of Rhasidat or Mageean). Meanwhile weâll see the Irish ladies rugby team likely hammered for the next month or 6 weeks with plenty of talk of bravery and heroic defeats.
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Itâs bizarre - that clown Marie Crowe devotes serious amount of air time on the 2fm evening sports show to these with no discernible achievement or improvement
RTE havenât a clue about sports. Theyâre just lazy and rubby is easy to cover.
It also gets an audience, sadly. Athletics doesnt, and never has, outside the Olympics. Sadly this is how it is and always has been.
Whether they improve or achieve or not is immaterial. I think they won a grand slam in recent memory. Itâs more bizarre that they continue to shower the whole thing in positivity and bravery while ignoring genuinely world class lady athletes.
A mark of someoneâs standing / box office ability is usually if theyâre known by a single name, usually first name but sometimes surname. Sonia. Catherina. Derval. Katie (Mc). Katie (T). Kellie. I couldnât give you the name of a single rugby player but can reel off Rhasidat, Ciara, Sharlene, Sarah amongst others. All the above could come home from Rome in June with European medals.
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Iâd say the Ireland Italy game today had about 3000 people at it. Youâll nearly get more than that at the National Championships in Santry
Also, and someone else might confirm, but I believe the ladies games might be tied in with the menâs, but Iâm open to correction on that.
Virgin Media might be about to target athletics outside the Olympics, that would be great if so
Iâm not arguing in favour of Irish womenâs rugby, but athletics, rightly or wrongly, doesnât stir people outside the big championships. And we donât back our athletes at all. I remember not long ago Thomas Barr was begging on social media for a sponsored car. Itâs crazy how little we appear to rate our athletes.
Unless they medal at the Olympics theyâre not cared about. If Sonia retired without an Olympic medal sheâd be seen as a failure by many. We havenât won an Olympic athletics medal since her one in 2000. Fairly sure it was John Treacy the last one before her in 1984. The bar theyâre held to is ridiculous.
Iâm a long time following athletics and I never remember us having a squad of ladies with the depth we have now. Virgin M are doing their bit but they just show the stock commentary and have yer man Will whathisname asking bland and awful questions. Meanwhile RTE and Virgin have a studio dissecting awful 6N coverage akin to Ger Loughnane and Joe Brolly dissecting a bad Div 4 Ladies camogie or ladies football game.
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Iâm willing to give VM a chance grow what theyâre at. If they get the viewing figures, youâd imagine they might add to the coverage. And weâll no doubt bitch about who they put in the studio.
The fact that weâre putting in and excelling in relays shows the depth we have. I never thought Iâd see such sprinters in Irish colours. Itâs very impressive.
Actually having a studio would be a start
We were visiting family for the day that was in it & in a house early afternoon with some âcanât see it, canât be itâ girls watching the womenâs rubby.
âAh no, not at allâŚIâm not that pushed with the football todayâŚitâs fine to leave the rubby onâŚsure the girls are watching it.â
There was a moment right after half time where the Irish were pressing for a try 7-15 down & a few of us were standing up chatting & drinking tae, half paying attention. Anyway they had a 3 v 1 sweeping left & the last defender was kinda hedging her bets between the ball carrier & the lass immediately beside her. But she was flat footed & not really much of an obstacle. Yer wan with the ball decided to take her out of the equation anyway by skipping the lass next to her & floating the pass out to the winger. Now it wasnât a perfect pass but it was only 10 yards or so & the winger had all the time in the world. She just needed to make sure of the catch & she would have had a literal walk over the line from 5 metres out.
As the ball floated towards her, I could see it happening almost in slow motion. Oh itâs not a perfect ball, itâs dying on her a little, she just needs to take a couple of steps over take it into her chest, oh sheâs kinda standing still, ah sheâs not moving her feet, oh sheâs going to reach out for it from where sheâs standing, ah jaysus, sheâs like a visually impaired person pawing the air in front of her so she doesnât walk into a wall, ah sheâs fucking knocked it on.
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Iâm always surprised that they donât give the hockey more live coverage than womens rugby. At least we are moderately successful at it, it is a good product to watch and it is played by way more girls than rugby.
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A big +1 to this. Have they also qualified for the Olympics or am I mixing them up with the men?
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To be fair I think the the ladies sprinters are genuine household names at the moment, there isnât a hope Iâd be able to name one of the rugby team. The reality though is that a rugby match is 80+ mins of content, plus all the extras you can generate out of analysis of team selection, referee decisions, scores etc. A 4 x 400 relay is just 3 mins of people running as fast as they can.
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The men have made it this time. The women missed out. Loreto were playing in the EHL 8 this weekend which is the champions league of club hockey. To make the last 8 is a brilliant achievement. A tournament dominated by Dutch ,German and Spanish sides.
TNT (BT) have showed all the games since Thursday
One of the goals from the weekend
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Men this time I think. It is widely played in girls schools and Iâd imagine we could be very good at it if they put in a bit of funding.
Rugby 7s is an Olympic sport but is essentially an exhibition game. The fact that Vicki Wall will be an Olympian after a year in the sport is farcical.
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Sur some lads took up American football a few weeks ago & are on the professional contracts now
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