CORK GAA CHIEF Frank Murphy says Croke Park’s historic new TV deal with Sky Sports will force RTÉ to improve its coverage of hurling and football.

At last night’s board meeting in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the Rebels’ veteran county board secretary Murphy also took aim at the attention Montrose bosses give to Gaelic games.

“Last year, there were 94 senior intercounty games played,” he said, “and only 40 were televised by anybody, with 54 not shown at all.

“Of the 29 qualifiers, four were covered, two by RTÉ and two by TV3, whereas Sky will shown eight qualifiers on Saturday evenings. The context in which we must look at this is that RTÉ does little for the national league and nothing for the club championship.

“Other sports have games shown live with small attendances. Why is RTÉ accommodating these fixtures when those that support the sport don’t go?

“On the eve of last year’s All-Ireland hurling final replay, there was a sports programme on RTÉ featuring cricket, tennis and a whole variety of sports with no reference to the replay. I know that a protest was made to RTÉ and it was disdainfully rejected.

“BBC Northern Ireland didn’t even consider the result worth mentioning, no reference in any of its sports programmes even though 83,000 people were a match two hours down the road. That’s the type of treatment the GAA is receiving and we must take account of all of that when we assess what people at national level do on a commercial basis.

“In addition, as a board, knowing what we are looking for with regard to redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, I wouldn’t like to be critical of the GAA on that basis.”

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