GAA News

The treatment of Davy Fitzgerald on The Sunday Game last weekend has prompted uproar in his native county, where they want to know why he was the subject of such intense scrutiny.

You all know the story now. A fired up Davy got into a bit of a row with a Waterford player on the sideline during the Munster semi-final last weekend and the footage of him using some rather, eh, industrial language was analysed in detail by The Sunday Game panel following complaints from a number of viewers.

The screening of the footage had been intended to shed further light on a row involving Fitzgerald, John Mullane and Eoin Kelly, with both Waterford players celebrating provocatively in front of Davy Fitz and Mullane since admitting that he had been motivated to do so by alleged comments made by the Clare manager in the run-up to the game.

Despite the fact that controversial incidents happen often in the GAA, rarely if ever has one manager been the subject of such intense scrutiny as Fitzgerald was last Sunday night and the reaction to the coverage has been angry to say the least.

According to a report in the Irish Independent, Croke Park have already been in touch with RTE to express their dissatisfaction with the way the coverage was presented, while following a meeting of the Clare County Board on Thursday night, they have decided to write to Croke Park for support from a central level rather than go to RTE directly.

Certainly, so-called ‘investigations’ into the behaviour of individual characters have rarely if ever happened in RTE’s coverage of all sports across the board in recent years and it is understood that Croke Park have asked RTE if they will continue with this sort of coverage and if so, if it will apply to other sports apart from the GAA.

As controversial a character as Davy Fitz is, he did seem to be unfairly vilified on Sunday night and unless The Sunday Game stick to their guns and insist that all managers will be subject to similar scrutiny throughout the rest of the championship, it will be interesting to see whether he gets an apology or if there is some sort of explanation on tomorrow night’s programme.