'The media coverage has been very poor' - Ryan

Westmeath senior hurling team manager Michael Ryan has criticised the national media for its “very poor coverage” of the Joe McDonagh Cup.

With one game remaining of round robin section of the second tier competition, Ryan's side have already qualified for the final and earned themselves a place in the All Ireland preliminary quarter final after winning their first four matches.

Speaking to the The So-Called Weaker Podcast from Balls.ie this week, Ryan said that the new format has worked well and questioned the GAA's plans to reduce the six team competition to five counties next year.

He also criticised the national media for its coverage of the competition.

“The two teams who get to the final will have seven championship games, which has to be a good thing. There have been a lot of even games, and the standard has been fairly good. What I would say is that the media coverage has been very poor. Particularly from the television point of view which is a problem for players. When you're trying to promote the game in these counties, a little bit of better coverage would be good.

“Overall, it's been a really good competition and what I particularly like is the even number of counties, meaning no teams have a bye, so the concept is working very well. So, lo and behold, I hear that they want to make it into a five-team competition. Typical Irish thing: if something isn't broken, go and fix it.”

“As far as I know is that one team from our group is being relegated, and the second team from the bottom are playing off with the Christy Ring winners. It looks like they want to get it back to five teams, and I think that's a mistake.”

Regarding the lack of coverage of the Joe McDonagh Cup, Ryan singled out that the national broadcaster for criticism.

“Some of the blame goes to RTE. At the end of the day, they didn't even put up the scores some weeks. Maybe they don't have enough cameras and reporters to go around, surely it costs nothing to throw the results on screen, yet there were some weeks in which they didn't even throw the results on screen. It shouldn't have happened. Each and every team down there are working just as hard as everybody else.

“We are all doing our four or five nights a week, we are doing our gym sessions, so everybody is putting it in. From a spectator point of view, the reaction from the people at the games has been very good. The standard has been decent, the commitment has been total and it is well worth showing.

“Maybe there should have been some kind of deal done with TG4 to show it. It's something that needs to be looked at going forward. We can probably forgive it because it's the first year of the competition, but it needs to be looked at.”

Westmeath finish the round robin stage of the competition next Saturday with a match away to Carlow in Netwatch Cullen Park.

The podcast can be listened to below: