Eddie Keher blasts 'inferiority complex' around hurling promotion

The Kilkenny great doesn’t detect enough appreciation for Gaelic games from the national broadcaster

CONTROVERSY: A GAAGO microphone is seen before the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 3 match between Cork and Tipperary at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Kilkenny great Eddie Keher claims RTÉ has “an inferiority complex” about promoting the national games and believes the current inter-county championship schedule is “a shambles”.

On a number of issues in the past, Keher has locked horns with Dónal Óg Cusack but he found himself agreeing wholeheartedly with several of the comments made by the former Cork goalkeeper on “The Sunday Game” this past weekend.

GAAGO was one of them – “an awful lot of older people, very much like having to pre-buy a ticket for matches, aren’t used to GAAGO,” said the 81-year-old.

It’s the condensed nature of the All-Ireland senior hurling championship that vexes Keher most. “The whole fixture calendar, all the games are on top of each other. It feels like they just want to get hurling out of the way. You have these matches one after another and there is no space.

“I was talking to John Kiely last week at the Dillon Quirke Foundation fundraising launch and telling him about what it was like for supporters. A match like Limerick-Waterford is played and you can’t talk about it for the next week as you usually would because there’s another match the following weekend. I asked Kiely how he coped, and he said as soon as you come into the dressing room after the match you’re focusing on the next game.

“The whole thing is a shambles. They have all these matches, most of them taking place this month, and they’re not using the whole summer. We’re handing the prime part of it over to other sports. It doesn’t seem to benefit the clubs – the county final in Kilkenny was played the same time last year as it was before.

“The thing with GAAGO is they’re not able to cover all the matches because they’re all on top of each other. Young people across the country need to be seeing as much of the likes of Patrick Horgan and TJ Reid as possible.” 

Keher doesn’t detect enough appreciation for Gaelic games from RTÉ either. 

“I grew up in the 50s when there was an inferiority complex. Nothing Irish was any good; it had to be English, German or Japanese. That changed through organisations such as the GAA who tried to establish an identity and pride in our country, in themselves.

“I never saw that pride being instilled by RTÉ. I don’t mean the GAA presenters in RTÉ but there is so much about other sports. I’m not condemning other sports but if you turn on a news bulletin on a Friday it’s soccer to begin with and they go through all sorts of matches even though Cork could be playing Tipp the following day. It wouldn’t even be mentioned.

“There’s that inferiority complex that has seeped into RTÉ sport. They need to re-promote our games because it’s lost momentum but the GAA is at fault as well.” 

Meanwhile, new GAAGO chief Noel Quinn believes they have struck the correct “balance” with their output and has called on critics to judge them over a longer period of time.

Speaking at Monday’s launch of the 2023 Tailteann Cup, Quinn responded to criticism made by Cusack who questioned if RTÉ and the GAA, who jointly own the GAAGO platform, are “exploiting hurling”.

Quinn explained that the Limerick-Clare game was offered and taken by RTÉ only for it to be rescheduled for Saturday due to The Great Limerick Run and GAAGO picked it up instead. Cork and Tipperary’s game was also slated in for a Saturday due to the Munster SFC final the following day.

Quinn said: “Look, admittedly there will be some big games that go on GAAGO and not on free to air. And that's just a fact of life, that's just how subscription services go sometimes.

“We're fully aware of some people saying that Munster hurling is behind a paywall. But we've literally tripled the number of games made available to those who are prepared to pay the €1.55 per game, if they bought it at the season pass rate.

"And there's been a lot of positive reaction to it. In terms of promotion of hurling, RTÉ will broadcast 15 hurling championship matches over the course of the championship. They have a couple of big Munster double headers coming up.

"And at this stage there's probably close to 200 games free to air anyway across the year. So we feel we have the balance right here. But look, it's early days yet. Hopefully, people will judge this on the multi-year deal that is in place rather than the first couple of weekends."