I think you misunderstood today’s article mate if that is your synopsis
I didn’t read the article, just the headline. I just commented on your bizarre comment that this was somehow bad for rugby in the rugby off season.
More people watch the English football team than watched the oirish rugby team win the 6 nations
Your conclusion is that this is rugby country 
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When it comes to soccer Eire soccer types are only interested in watching soccer on television (and only if its an English club side or the English national team). There’s no interest in sustaining a domestic soccer league in Eire any more. Shamrock Rovers used to get crowds of 40,000 in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Now its a man and his dog who go along to watch Shamrock Rovers and indeed any League of Ireland team.
LOI crowds are comparable if not better than the all Ireland rugby league crowds.
More people watched the England v Australia (group game) in the rugby World Cup than the absolutely crucial Euro 2016 qualifier for Eire vs world champions Germany in the same month.
TV3 have credited the Rugby World Cup as the driving force behind their recovery. Indeed, they since went out and torpedoed RTÉ out of the market for the Six Nations and have also now invested heavily in the European Champions Cup.
On an annual basis, the Six Nations sees itself inside the top 20 most watched programmes in Eire. It is consistent programming, just like rugby football consistently sells out the Aviva Stadium when the Eire football team cannot.
This of course ignores the impact of rugby football up north. As Brian O’Driscoll showed yesterday, it is reaching audiences as a 32 county sport/team that no other can on the island. That is why the Irish Rugby Team are the Nation’s team.
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And your point is? That Eire is soccer country?
Where are your stats on that?
4 of the top 20 games being rugby football from last year. The most of any sport. In a year where the Irish team lost their opening game. That’s consistency for the Nations team, not including the television ratings from the six counties.
When the going is good for the Eire soccer team the ratings go up, but it just is not as consistent. That’s a fact.
Any stats from 2016 and 2012
You means years of big tournament play?
You’re just emphasizing my point.
The Eire soccer team do not get particularly strong ratings for their run of the mill fixtures. They do if there’s something “big” i.e. something for people to remember the good times of 1990. In contrast, in 2017 for example, the Irish rugby team lost their first match of the annual Six Nations campaign and then another along the way. They still got 4 out of 5 of those games in the top 20 rated sports programmes of the year.
Similarly in attendance, the Eire soccer team languishes badly behind rugby. All sorts of excuses are peddled here by the rugby haters about the challenges of going to Eire games and rugby jolly ups, completely obvious to the fact that the Eire team can easily muster 10s of thousands for big tournaments on foreign shores.
And once again to emphasise, this ignores the popularity in the Six.
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Why does an area with such a small population have so many places at the Rugby World Cup?
Do you have the figures mate?
Because they are good at the sport.
I asked you a similar question above but you refuse to answer.
Is association football more popular that rugby football globally? Of course it is, if you think that is what I’m arguing than you are truly messed up by the exponential growth of rugby football in Ireland.
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Do you not buddy?
Check mate
How?
How do the Eire soccer team rate for the average qualifier?
There are European teams far better than the likes of Panama and Saudi Arabia that don’t get in. It seems every country that plays rugby gets to the World Cup. They even leave spots for countries that might take up the game in the weeks leading up to it.
A thread suggesting that the soccer ball world cup has destroyed the gaa in the ratings war has now somehow shifted to an argument about soccer ball and rugby
A lot of people lost an afwul lot of respect for mac that time 
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