If the Football Review Committee wants a more entertaining spectacle, then referees and coaches should have microphones during the upcoming interprovincial games
The FRC interprovincial games are going to be open to the public and, what’s more, they’re going to be shown live on television. The semi-finals will be held inon Friday, October 18th and those games will be shown on TG4. The final and shield final are on the following night, and will be shown on RTÉ 2 and the RTÉ News Channel respectively.
Conor McKenna aiming to become only the second player in history to win both a Sam Maguire and an AFL PremiershipFor a man who studiously rose above the idea of “PR” when he was Dublin manager, it strikes me that Jim Gavin is acutely aware that this is a war fought on a number of fronts.
And this drive towards transparency and openness should continue into the broadcast of these two games. There is absolutely no reason not to “mic up” the referees for this game., or we could get it straight from the horse’s mouth, via David Coldrick or Seán Hurson, or whichever of our best referees are given the nod. I know who’d I rather hear from.
And if over the course of the evening we happened to get an insight into just how decisions are made on the fly on an intercounty sideline, then that’s just a little bonus for us sitting at home. These games being shown live on television is further proof of how comprehensively they have been backed. But it’s also a risk. It’s a show of faith in their own work that they’ve allowed the TV cameras in, but it’s not a fait accompli that the games look as good as they hope they will.