National games still holding their own

On Gaelic Games:The results of a recent survey of attitudes to different sports were actually quite positive from the GAA's perspective, writes SEAN MORAN

WAS THERE more than just prevailing temperatures in the slight chill the GAA may have felt in recent days? As Croke Park again took plaudits for turning around two major occasions in different sports on the same weekend, it was cheerfully remarked that this was all happening without a county colour in sight.

The 2005 GAA marketing sub-committee, which drew up an unpublished report, became alarmed at the growing disparity in perception between the public acclaim accorded to its dazzling new stadium and that enjoyed by the rest of the GAA, a comparative bad bank where, as one leading GAA official gloomily observed, "Croke Park gets all the plaudits and we're left with the disciplinary problems".

That apprehension came uncomfortably into focus during the last week with a World Cup soccer play-off and the high-profile national rugby team bringing big crowds down Jones Road while Galway referee Christy Helebert travelled the same route to ask for some response to his being assaulted after a county semi-final.

But that is a hardy perennial. Indiscipline is frequently a greater embarrassment to the GAA at club level than it is on the intercounty stage, although association president Christy Cooney will be glad that before the winds of November came blowing he got in his announcement about Central Council believing sportsmanship levels to be so high during last summer's championships that disciplinary reforms could be shelved.

It didn't take last week's survey to confirm that soccer and, increasingly, rugby are serious competitors for Gaelic games, but these are times of heightened competition and the one ingredient the GAA cannot source is an international dimension.

That has long been accepted by the GAA. As far back as 1966 the first widely televised soccer World Cup provided a point of entry for many in Ireland who wouldn't have had a major previous interest in the global game, and its impact was noted in the major GAA review by the McNamee Commission in 1971.

Although the concept is struggling for a guaranteed future, the International Rules series fulfils a function in this regard, bringing some overseas rivalry to Gaelic games and giving the GAA big events at Croke Park at this time of the year.

Last week a survey, commissioned by Pembroke PR as a service for clients, of public attitudes to different sports was published.

Findings were interpreted as spelling trouble for the GAA, with football coming only third behind soccer and rugby when respondents were asked what was their favourite sport. That spin became so furious that Pembroke themselves had to point out that the results were actually quite positive from the perspective of Gaelic games.

In approximate numbers, soccer scored 25 per cent, rugby 24 per cent and football 23 per cent. When hurling was added to football, the total figure was around 32 per cent - not at all bad at a time of high-profile activity for the competitor sports and during the GAA's effective close season.

By the end of this evening the soccer team will presumably be out of the running for South Africa next year, but the game will continue to attract attention through the English and Scottish premierships as well as the Champions League. In other words, soccer always has a presence, but, compared with the halcyon days of the past two decades, it is weaving a weaker spell at national level.

Rugby, too, has a core audience, but it has traditionally been quite small. The reason for the current state of well-being is that the game in Ireland is having its greatest year of the entire 134 of the IRFU's existence.

Ireland hadn't won a Grand Slam for 61 years, and Leinster's European Cup triumph made it three in four years for Irish rugby.

Rugby may harness the current wave and make success, or at least contention for success, a regular feature of the game, but it can't conjure a better year than 2009 - short of Ireland winning a World Cup. The country has yet to qualify for even a semi-final.

But at the moment the game is flying. It also features well-known sportsmen. The celebrity of Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell is built on years of achievement in international arenas and both have captained the Lions.

What is more interesting is the celebrity pecking order. Aside from Shay Given, no soccer player rates in the same league as the big rugby personalities. Attitude plays a role in these perceptions. Most soccer players lack the extrovert appeal of their predecessors, as vast earnings propel them far beyond the world inhabited by their followers.

As one PR professional said: "You bring in some of the younger soccer internationals to a launch and two of them arrive wearing shades and stand in the corner talking to each other. Someone like (Munster and Ireland secondrow) Donncha O'Callaghan comes along and ploughs into the middle of the room meeting people and talking to them."

Rugby players also benefit from the felicitous fit between the provincial structure and catchment viability for the European Cup. Competing successfully in Europe allows Irish teams to keep Irish players at home, and they consequently remain part of the national landscape and recognisable in public places.

The GAA specialises in that sense of local identification, and figures like Henry Shefflin, Colm Cooper and Tadhg Kennelly all pulled in higher ratings than most soccer players, despite the absence of an international role.

In addition, the brand awareness for GAA sponsors in Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny and Kerry was considered encouragingly high, proving that football and hurling attract plenty of attention; that message is presumably not lost on the commercial world.

Although they mightn't be a cause for complacency, these were not bad findings for the GAA. They simply illustrate the plain reality about public recognition of internationally successful Irish sportspeople.

But whereas there won't always be European Cups or, at times, even qualification and grand slams, there will always be championships and All-Irelands. And there will even be years when counties other than Kilkenny and Kerry win them.