WHEN THE FINAL whistle is blown in Tullamore in this afternoon’s Leinster senior hurling semi-final, they’ll be in countdown mode.
From that juncture, there’ll only be about a half hour to go. Sunday Sport will wind down on RTE Radio 1 in the aftermath of Kilkenny and Galway battling it out and then at 6pm, they will take centre stage.
Eoin McDevitt, Ciaran Murphy and the lads back for a stint on live radio, in their Second Captains incarnation.
It’s Second Captains Championship and it’s going to be live.
“We weren’t actively seeking to get back in to live radio,” admits producer Mark Horgan. “We had the TV shows with RTE and the podcast work with ‘The Irish Times’ which was all keeping us really busy but then this opportunity came along.
“For the last few weeks we’ve putting different structures working on it and using different elements. It’s exciting and we’re looking forward to it.”
Throw-in for their debut is this evening at 6pm with the opening offering running until 7pm. They’ll be repeating that production every Sunday until the Sam Maguire Cup is handed over on the steps of the Hogan Stand in late September.
There’ll be a trio of All-Ireland winners tonight in Armagh’s Oisin McConville, Cork’s John Gardiner and Tipperary’s Benny Dunne on offer to provide thoughts on the weekend’s action. Boxer Darren O’Neill will be on hand for a different slant as he reflects on how his beloved Kilkenny fared over the weekend.
“There’s a really good audience there with Sunday Sport already and it’s going to be immediately after big games,” outlines Horgan. “Kilkenny and Galway is the big match this weekend and we’re going to be on straight after that. The timing is perfect really.”
“We’ve been kind of picturing what the audience will be. We’re hoping that people are looking for analysis that’s honest, detailed and strong. But we also want to look at the intricacies of the championship and try to make those observations that some of us find are funny.
“The immediate focus is going to be on the games that are just finished, particularly the headline game on a Sunday. We’ll also be looking back on the games that happened the day before and if there’s anything that has surfaced as a major topic over the weekend.”
Twitter will be a focal point for their efforts to drive interaction, according to Horgan.
“We’ll be looking to engage with tweets all over the weekend using #scgaa. That’ll help drive conversation. Responding to texts are something we haven’t been able to do over the past year so we’re really looking forward to that.
“Using the analysts will be key but we also want to interact with listeners. We’re going to be in studio in RTÉ for the first few weeks before then we want to get out around the stadiums and we’ll be in Croke Park for the closing stages of the championship. We’re looking forward to getting started.”
