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Thanks lads for your calm response to my post.  A few things. 

Firstly, I dont intend to get involved in an ongoing discussion here. Its just not me and I will leave that to you guys instead.  I simply dont have the time

Secondly, I left there within the past few years. I knew the sports guys from my work in TV.  I am now happily retired improving my golf handicap!!! So things may have changed. So I am not Kevin McStay or anyone like that.  The big problem was always trying to squeeze into the schedule.  Its not a sports station which may be hard for us sports fans to grasp.  But its not a sports station so the sports dept have constantly got to fight for airtime.  TV schedules are drawn up weeks in advance for many reasons.  With the introduction of the qualifiers, alot more games have come on stream.  Many games are only fixed a week or two in advance. At that stage, the sports dept have got to choose a game and then try to fit it into the schedule while at the same time adhering to GAA requests on times etc. 

As many of you will know it takes more than just a commentator and a camera man to get a game to TV live.  Its a huge operation and with RTEs resources, it is simply not possible to show more games over a short period of time. Not even the BBC could show the ammount of live matches over one weekend which RTE manages during the GAA championship all from their own resources.  No live feeds from other channels or anything like that.  I remember hearing from one head in RTE that SKY sports spend more on two premiership matches than RTEs sports budget for one year.  That puts it in perspective.  That was a fact stated about three years ago.  Thats what RTE are up against and unfortunately alot of critics measure RTE against what SKY and even the BBC can do. I would hazzard a guess that the BBC also have a much bigger budget yet RTE scores every time when they are up against BBC or SKY showing the same rugby or soccer match.  With a tiny fraction of the resources, viewers still choose RTE as any world cup viewership figures will show.  Now you have got to ask why is that. Its down to the good no nonsense job they do in my opinion.

With regard to bums on seats.  Yes RTE sports viewership does do well but it only hits top note on a big soccer international or a big big GAA occassion.  But again the remit is not commercial.  Its a public service broadcaster.  Its not about bums on seats.  If it was, leargas, oireachtas report and the angelus would have been given the heave ho years ago.

And finally in relation to commentators, they are very hard to find.  Listen to local radio.  how many of them would make it onto RTE. The talent just isnt there.  is therRTE will try and blood new commentators but they are so hard to find, Look at TV3. Is there anyone there you would move up to RTE? Look at Setanta. With all due respect to them and they are doing a great job, they have Fred Cogley who retired from RTE years ago  doing rugby.  No harm to Fred who is a great guy but where is the great talent coming through there. And I heard two guys doing GAA on Setanta who acually work in local radio.  They are fairly good, but are they great. One of them Kevin Mallon sounds like a nice guy and does his best but would he be bang on for RTE? I beleive that he is a school teacher and a very nice and good GAA man. Even you guys admit that the beeb cant find a good TV commentator. Jackie Fullerton is still doing their soccer after 140 years for goodness sake.  And one other thing, I can guarantee you, you will not meet a nicer more decent guy than Ger Canning.  he is a gentleman to his fingertips.  People may not like his style of commentary but I dont think he is the sort of person that deserves personal criticism.  he is a lovely sociable and down to earth man probably too humble for the sort of criticism he has to put up with.

All I will say lads is, I share your frustration on alot of matters but its not all black and white.  The sports people in RTE working for a normal wage are doing their best.  But getting matces to air is a very tough process especially at this time of year and when you consider that the people in front of camera and behind it are also working on other sports like boxing at this time of the year, its quite amazing how they actually manage to get so much stuff to air without any hiccups.  And that goes for soccer, racing and rugby which I think RTE do very well considering how crowded and competitive sports broadcasting is becoming.  Just ask the BBC who have just finished covering the British Open, one of the few sports they have left.  And still they do sport better than anyone else, especially SKY.  If we are not careful, we will go the same route if we keep complaining about RTE and their GAA coverage.  The FAI panicked a few years ago and ended up coming back with cap in hand and Dunphy was sitting inside looking at them smiling.

RTE will make mistakes and wrong calls will be made but dont think they are all in a room with their feet up smoking cigars trying to find out the best way of annoying GAA fans while they sip their brandy and talk about rugby. Nice image but it isnt like that.  Most of them are from the country and are GAA fans themselves through and through believe me.

Thanks lads.  I will retire from posting now and celebrate Harringtons marvellous win in the golf. 

For some time now I have been reading this board as a GAA fan.  Most of you guys come across as angry little men who will never be pleased when it comes to GAA coverage by RTE. I worked in RTE for a few years.  Dont worry, I am no-one special, just a guy who worked behind the scenes in TV.  I dont work there anymore.  But I feel I should defend some of the outrageous generalisaions and subjective hatred which is posted on this board about RTE.

I would be here for a week if I was to begin dissecting every single false accusation and contradiction which has been attributed to RTE by angry ant posters on this board. But here are a few thoughts.

Firstly in relation to those who work on programmes, I would love to see some of you guys doing commentaries and analyses. For every one perosn who thinks you are doing a great job, there will always be others who disagree. Thats life. Look at your own topics under discussion Seldom if ever is there any one GAA topic or dicussion on which there is unanimous agreement.  So is there acutally such a thing as a GAA analyst who will say something that everyone will agree on? Based on your own arguements on this board, the answer is clearly no.  So they are in a no win situation.  If Dara O Cinneide says something that half of you think is spot oin, there will always be the other half who will say he is talking sh..e.  All of these analysts are former county players.  How many people here are former county players who know exactly what its like for those involved.  I would love to see the vitriol on this board if RTE did away with GAA players and used journalists instead.  Which would you prefer? Who is more qualified to analyse matches.   I think there are probably more bar stool generals than former county players throwing anonymous hateful comments onto this board about people.  I dont know if they read this board but if I was Tony Davis or Anthony Tohill, or Martin McHugh, I would feel physically sick at the hurtful comments which you guys feel free to post here under anonymity.  I know I would be genuinely hiurt if I was called the sort of names which ye guys feel free to do on the world wide web. Its actually liabilous in reality.  I would love to know from all ye RTE haters, who would you have on your TV panel and why. List them. Tell us why they are better than the All Ireland medalists who are on each Sunday.  And what is wrong with being critical about the quality of a match? Ye are the very ones who lash out at SKY for their biased coverage claiming every soccer match is great. If RTE panelists were sitting on the fence about the quality of a match, i know where I would look first to see them get bashed for not having an opinion. Yes, this webpage.  Again, you should remember these guys are only human, not getting paid a fortune and they dont deserve some of the vindictive hatred which comes from many of ye faceless anonymous hurlers on the ditch.

Secondly, you give out week after week about RTE coverage. Before the new Road to Croker programme, the know alls on this board were predicting how terrible it would be.  It proved to be a good show yet they get lambasted even before the programme goes on air. Even then, the comments have been begrduging.  This week, ye were lashing typical RTE, that shower etc because they were only showing one match yesterday. They showed two.  Not a word of "thanks". That post quickly fell down the boards pecking order.  They showed the Dubs V Meath replay on RTE.  More cries of "Dubs loving" etc. Then they show Tipp V Limerick on RTE 1, again the silence was deafening.  These were two decisions which RTE would never have done with any other sport, yet RTE are full of "rugby heads".  How do ye know? Many of ye wouldnt know how to get to RTE let alone know anyone working in sport there. That assumption is completely laughable anyway.  Its an urban myth which ye guys have latched onto.  Ye really do show your true colours when you come up with this rubbish about RTE sport being biased towards rugby. 

You must also remember that the GAA fan is in the complete minority among RTE licence fee payers. It boxes above its weight when it comes to quality coverage vis a vis viewership figures. The same can also be said about other sports like rugby and soccer.  The GAA gets top priority in RTE and rightly so.  But if you were privvy to the comments which come into RTE which are distributed to staff weekly you would see the ammount of viewers and listeners that complain about too much sport on RTE and even among those who like rugby and soccer, they give out hell about RTE loving the GAA too much. As I said, they cant win.  its quite unbelievable the negative comments which come into RTE from people who have absolutely no time for sport and in turn no time for GAA.  Like it or not, their view is as important as yours.  They pay the same licence fee.

One guy here one day was complaining about too much talk and not enough action on the Sunday Game. Another similar Sunday Game hater said that there wasnt enough analyses and too much action which had already been seen earlier in the day. If the RTE Sunday Game producers were to use this website as a template for suggestions, they would be completely confused.  Why dont all of ye RTE haters get together now, form a new thread and design the "perfect Sunday Game".  See how many posts there will be before ye are all happy.  Go on, put your money where your mouth is.  In the meantime, stick to local radio for your updates on GAA because if you hate RTE so much, why bother tuning in. 

Oh, and for those of you talking about Setanta, remember your soccer counterparts went off to TV3. We saw the wonderful job TV3 made of soccer. All of those soccer guys who hated Dunphy etc were soon saying, better the devil you know. So be careful what you wish for.  At least you are getting it for free with RTE. Love to hear from all of you (mainly non licence fee paying because you are in the six counties according to your posts) angry little ants whinge and complain when its pay for play on Setanta!!