Martin Breheny in the Indo

Daysha

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but i'd like to highlight two of Martin Brehenys articles that appeared in todays Independent.

Croker looks set to remain open to soccer and rugby

MAJOR rugby and soccer internationals are likely to continue to be played in Croke Park after redevelopment work is completed in Lansdowne Road.

While the GAA insists that Croke Park will be locked to rugby and soccer once Lansdowne Road re-opens and the IRFU and FAI maintain that they will be quite happy with their new facility, all three acknowledge privately that the 30,000-capacity differential will become a major factor.

Apart from leaving 30,000 fans without tickets for the big soccer and rugby attractions, there's also the heavy financial loss which would be suffered by the three organisations if Croke Park is closed.

A packed Croke Park would yield at least €2.5m more per game than Lansdowne Road and with the GAA, IRFU and FAI all anxious to improve their revenue flow it's a cash-cow which will not go un-milked.

Lansdowne Road, which is currently under re-development at a cost of €365m, will obviously be used by the IRFU and the GAA for the majority of their games but the mega-events, such as Ireland v England and France Six Nations rugby games or major World Cup and European championship soccer qualifiers would be natural fits for the much bigger Croke Park.

The GAA has already taken the first step towards softening its approach on the continued use of Croke Park by sanctioning the hosting of friendly soccer and rugby games in 2008.

Two soccer games will be played next spring followed by two rugby games against New Zealand and Argentina in November.

That's in addition to the three six-nations rugby games and two World Cup soccer qualifiers, bringing to nine the number of non-GAA games in Croke Park next year.

If, as seems certain, a similar arrangement is put in place for 2009, the GAA will earn around €30 million in rent money before Lansdowne Road re-opens.

The GAA insists that once Lansdowne Road is redeveloped, Croke Park will close to rugby and soccer but the prospect of losing €1.75 million per game in rent money is likely to lead to a re-think. And if the GAA declares in two years time that they are prepared to continue to host rugby and soccer on a limited basis, the IRFU and FAI would have a tough job explaining to supporters why they were shoe-horning their big events into Lansdowne Road while Croke Park can house an extra 30,000.

The GAA, IRFU and FAI are all likely to dismiss suggestions of an extended deal at Croke Park in the short term as they pursue their separate agendas but the process of choreographing an arrangement which would bring massive financial benefit to all while also meeting with universal sporting approval is expected to start once Lansdowne Road is nearing completion in two years time.

- Martin Breheny

and again

Offaly, Laois and Antrim to get reprieve as new league format faces axe

THE proposed new structure for the 2008 Allianz Hurling Leagues is likely to be torn down before it's even fully erected.

That could mean a reprieve for Offaly, Antrim and Laois, all of whom were angry over the decision to drop them down to Division Two while nine counties competed in the top flight.

Offaly manager John McIntyre led the campaign in an attempt to increase the number of counties in Division One, arguing that it would be counter-productive to have a nine-team elite in the top flight while counties like Offaly, Laois and Antrim campaigned at a lower level.

It now looks as if there will be a major re-think following the emergence of timing difficulties with the proposed nine-team Division One programme.

It would take nine weeks to run off the 'home' and 'away' schedule followed by two more to complete the semi-finals and finals and possibly one more to decide on relegation issues.

That's being seen as an excessively lengthy programme which would leave little room for other activity in the spring and also cut down on the lead-in time to the championship.

The GAA is to re-examine the entire fixtures programme at all levels over the next month and Pat Daly, the Head of Games, admitted that a re-think on the NHL format was a possibility.

"The way it's set up for 2008 would take up an awful lot of weekends to run off," he said. "There's no appetite to start the leagues before Christmas, so it has to be run off in spring but there's a limit to the amount of time available.

"With counties in divisions one and two due to get four home and four away games, followed by semi-finals and a final, the schedule would be very full even without Fitzgibbon Cup games.

"We would also have a lot of double rounds of football and hurling league games, so if we were to get a few weekends of bad weather, we could have total chaos with fixtures.

"There's also the need to keep a decent gap between the end of the league and the start of the championship, while clubs have to be looked after too so that they aren't totally squeezed by all the inter-county activity," said Daly.

Division One of the NHL was comprised of twelve teams, divided into two sections, up to this year but, on a recommendation of the Hurling Development Committee, was cut to nine for 2008, much to the annoyance of Offaly, Laois and Antrim.

Soundings are being taken at provincial and central level and all the indications so far are that the proposed system will be amended to a format which can be run off more quickly.

It's part of an overall review of the fixtures schedule which has come in for criticism in recent years as club players, in particular, complain that they are being ignored amid an ever-increasing inter-county scene.

While the hurling format may be adjusted, the new football league based on four merit-based divisions as decided by placings from earlier this year will proceed as planned in 2008.

- Martin Breheny

Now Im sorry if I'm being picky here but don't these two articles just scream tabloid desperation? Sensationalist headlines with nothing more than his own common knowledge to back up his first article and a twisting of words in the second. No where in the second article does it say anything about those 3 being remotely considering about returning to Division 1.

I would expect something along this lines in maybe the Sun or the Mirror but definately not Irelands biggest selling broadsheet. Although to be honest Im not entirely surprised Breheny has gone down this road. He played himself into the Semplegate affair and after the Cork manager quoted one of his articles as to why he was so furious with the medias response, Breheny gave himself a nice 2 page spread defending himself. Like I said if his Semplegate articles were in a different paper maybe the manager might have reacted differently but when you are reporting in such the manner he did in a paper like the Indo you're asking for trouble.

Anybody have any views on his articles or his style of reporting in general?

flogen

Neither article is anything I wouldn't expect from the Independent and frankly they're not written in any particularly trashy way.

That said the first article is probably a crock - I don't say that because I don't believe it, but it seems to me that Breheny figured it was a possibility worth writing about in factual terms. It's pure speculation and the only thing close to evidence he uses is the whole friendlies thing - he doesn't even quote an anonymous source.

What he says would be all well and good for a comment piece, but it's structured and headlined like a news one.

monument

Have you tried the Irish Times?

Radio Mad.

deise59 wrote:

I would expect something along this lines in maybe the Sun or the Mirror but definitely not Ireland's biggest selling broadsheet.

I believe the Irish Independent is both broadsheet and tabloid in size. I would class it as a downmarket publication, so wouldn't be at all surprised by some of the articles that appear in it.