When the Football Review Committee (FRC) started hosting their “sandbox” games earlier this summer, I presumed I was in the minority when I reckoned I’d like a look at a few of these. But it turns out I’ve got company.
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 in Croke Park on 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.
It is a pretty hilarious state of affairs that four games, with nothing whatsoever on the line, will get the TV treatment, but, quite frankly ... hook it to my veins.
It will be a very interesting couple of evenings at HQ. And it shows that this Football Review Committee is different from other GAA think tanks. When you take the scalpel to an entire sport, as they are undoubtedly doing, it behoves you to bring people with you. It’s not just enough to tell, sometimes you’ve got to show as well.
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For 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. There is the initial battle to come up with forward-thinking, progressive suggestions to improve the game, and then there’s the battle to convince Central Council delegates that all your hard work is worth their vote.
The first of those challenges needs to be backed with facts and figures. The second is more of a test of your ground game. Central Council delegates might be led by a higher calling, or they might be led by a chorus of dissent in their local boozer on a Sunday night.
These games being broadcast on RTÉ 2 and TG4 brings the argument all the way to the bar counter. How it goes down there may well dictate how it goes over to some in the corridors of power. He may wish it was different, but that’s the game Gavin signed up to play.
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.
For one, it will be a lot for viewers to take in. We could leave the explaining up to Marty Morrissey, 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. Clarity will be paramount, and, particularly if one’s Irish is only decent for those semi-final games, it’s probably best to hear it straight from the professionals.
It would also put the idea of a ref mic back on the agenda, because it’s still a good idea that just hasn’t been put to use yet. There’s really no reason not to have it for all our big games, and this might be the catalyst to put it back on the agenda for 2025.
But there should be microphones on the sidelines too. If the FRC really is dedicated to the idea of road-testing these changes, then being able to hear in real time how some of the best coaches in the game are reacting to game situations as they present themselves would be incredibly valuable. There should be a recognition that the more entertaining and insightful this whole show is, the more likely people are to engage with it on its merits.
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.
That element of variety will be helped by the fact that the teams will be made up of players whose clubs are out of county competition by that time, which should hopefully mean a bigger spread of players from around each province. That’s not nothing either.
Tony McEntee might have been right when he suggested this committee has been set up to succeed, but isn’t that the end-game of every committee – to succeed? And one thing that the FRC itself has realised from very early on, to its credit, is that this is not your ordinary GAA talking-shop. It understood its assignment from the moment Jarlath Burns took it upon himself to announce Gavin as its head, barely minutes after he’d ascended to the top job himself.
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.
They’ve been under no illusions that what they were asked to deliver was revolution, not evolution. Understanding that they need to put on a show for Joe and Josephine Public next month is the inevitable next step.
