GAA promotion of series way off the mark

ON GAELIC GAMES:. . . especially as the internationals are at present labouring under a number of pressures

MAYBE – WHO knows? – the virus entered the system in 2004. That was the year the Australians arrived in state of near-dishevelment, which encompassed being run to 10 points by a scratch selection of Dublin club players in a practice match, before being picked apart in the most one-sided Test in the then history of the international game.

Before the second Test started and with the series a lost cause, Australian players deliberately targeted the two outstanding Irish players from the previous week, Ciarán McDonald and Seán Óg hAilpín. Whether that was the precise watershed is hard to know but International Rules has really struggled ever since.

None of the culprits were made accountable by the joint GAA-AFL authorities and the message was allowed to drift free: there are limits to the disciplinary procedures that will apply. Misbehaviour wasn’t a one-way street but it was obvious that were the Australians granted any leeway to impose their physical superiority beyond the rules neither Irish players nor the game itself could go on.

The series that followed in 2005 and ’06 were both marked by out-of-control violence that ultimately sank the project as it had triumphantly existed in the early years of its resumption, from 1998-2003.

Since then there has been just one series, two years ago in Australia and although Ireland won it for the first time in four years a sense of probation and having to start all over again has settled on what had been a really successful international collaboration between two of the world’s great indigenous sports.

Next weekend the Australians arrive for their first visit since the gothic excess of the second 2006 Test. The future of the series and its viability will in all probability be decided over the next two years.

At present the internationals are labouring under a number of pressures. Obviously, were indiscipline and disorder to rematerialise the series would be discontinued. Even now the shadow cast by those events of half a decade ago still darkens perceptions.

Secondly, whereas the incremental changes to the rules, designed to make Ireland competitive, have worked they are equally running the risk of alienating Australian interest. Australia coach Mick Malthouse, who this season took Collingwood to its first AFL title in 20 years, was stoical enough about the changes when speaking after the 2008 series but his comments about the inter-change restrictions indicated there may be a limit to how far the Australians will go to keep things nicely balanced and that they can’t be expected to keep making concessions every time Ireland discover something else with which they’re having difficulty in coping.

Thirdly, there is the question of public interest. In the first six years of the resumed series the 100,000 aggregate-attendance for the two Tests became the norm and this was maintained for the series in Ireland in 2004 and ’06 but crowds were thinning in Australia.

This time around there isn’t much optimism that the series will attract six-figure gates even if the eventual numbers mightn’t be too far off the mark.

The idea of touring the Tests, taking them outside of Dublin, was partly intended to guarantee a capacity turnout for the traditionally slower-selling and less well-attended first Test but Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds where, at the end of next week, the series gets under way is a big enough venue and unlikely to sell out its 50,000 tickets.

What turns out a week later in Croke Park is up in the air but the insistent boom-time marketing campaign hasn’t been as much in evidence this year. That’s understandable in the current deathly economic atmosphere but the promotional buzz has also become quite muted compared to the busy schedules that have previously accompanied the build-up to the internationals.

The GAA hasn’t been helping itself in this. By this stage of proceedings we would normally have seen media conferences to announce the captain for the series and then at a later stage the training panel before finally, the match panel. There would also have been opportunities to question the manager on his priorities and hopes for the series. So far, nothing.

For any manager, coming to terms with the number of players tied up with club commitments can be difficult and make precise selections impossible but the Limerick Test is in 10 days’ time and we don’t even know the Ireland captain nor has manager Anthony Tohill met – or even spoken much to – the media since his appointment was announced earlier this year.

Tohill has been a selector for a couple of years and was Ireland captain during the successful trip Down Under in 2001. He is the foremost thinker of his generation on the international game and spent time in the AFL as a youngster with Melbourne.

The GAA is understandably anxious to co-operate with however he wants to prepare for the series. But Croke Park surely has to balance that with the reality that the internationals are a showpiece event for the GAA, giving it an isolated promotional platform during a very quiet time of the year between the All-Irelands and before the close season. The publicity opportunities for the series should have been up and running by now.

It is also curious that the broadcasting rights have gone to TG4. There may well be some very good strategic reason for moving around the rights – in 2006 Newstalk 106 were given radio rights to live coverage – but this move won’t be of much assistance to pushing the internationals. TG4 has been a superb broadcast partner for the GAA in showing events that more mainstream broadcasters can’t really justify, such as the county and club championships as well as National League matches on Sunday afternoons.

But the International Rules’ audiences will suffer as a consequence of this decision for the simple reason that placing any obstacles in the way of a viewership, be they based on signal reception or language, will inevitably impact on the promotional value of the series.

Similarly replacing Coca-Cola with the Daily Mail as title sponsor is hard to understand. Again it may be a perfectly good commercial deal but one thing newspapers don’t like doing is publicising rival sponsorships. International Rules is too big to be ignored but it’s hardly optimising the promotional environment – and the same would apply were The Irish Times on the logo.

In the circumstances of what will be a vital couple of weeks for the future of the international project, the GAA’s marketing focus on the series has been curiously lacking its customary sure-footedness.