Donal Óg Cusack believes there is a marked difference in how Gaelic football is critiqued in comparison to hurling.
Speaking at an event for the Electric Ireland GAA Minor Championships, the Corkman said that if it came down to a close choice between criticising a game or praising it, during his as a hurling analyst with RTÉ he always would have chosen the latter.
That is not something Cusack sees in football pundits. He thinks that some are more concerned with promoting their own image rather than maintaining that of the game.
When I was a pundit, if I'd a choice if I was going to blow the game up or put the game down, I'd always err on the side of it (blowing it up). I don't think that's common though. I've no problem saying that.
I do think that especially when I was in RTÉ, some of the football punidits would... I remember the first time I went up there, I mirrored them just to see what was happening. I remember thinking, there's actually beauty in some of the Gaelic football that's going on there but it appears to me as if a lot of the tone within some of the football pundits is to ensure that they put those guys down to make themselves look better.
I think we just need to have a collective look at the whole thing.
Cusack feels that hurling pundits, in general, are more positive about their game in comparison to their Gaelic football counterparts.
He also believes viewers deserve proper analysis, not just soundbites.
My experience of the hurling would have been that it's always got that sense. With the football, I don't know do they feel under some sort of personal pressure or something.
If you watch Gaelic football and you look at some of the detail of the game, I would have believed that there's beauty in the detail of the game that needs to be exposed rather than throwing out your standard one-liners that if you look back and did a review of the analysis and you did a hashtag on each one of those, you can line up a lot of the seconds of the coverage in blocks, blocks, blocks. And I always thought that was a bit disrespectful towards the viewers.
I think the viewers like seeing the detail and there's a beauty in the detail of our game of hurling and I think the more we expose that and celebrate it the better.
I see other sports right, and I like sports, I like all sports, but I see other sports that do not match the hand-eye co-ordination and I see some things being done and it's almost 'stop the world here because did you see the skill.'
Electric Ireland Minor Star Award ambassadors Dónal Óg Cusack and Oisín McConville are calling on the public to log on to the Electric Ireland Facebook page and get involved in the Player of the Week voting as the final stages of the GAA Minor season begin. The Electric Ireland GAA Minor Star Awards, which will take place in Croke Park on the 7th October 2017, aim to recognise the achievements and accolades of Minor GAA players.
