Malachy Clerkin's Irish Times column this week bore the lethal headline 'TV3 takes a long ad break - and we miss a pivotal moment in Irish rugby history'.
Between Tommy Martin, Conor McNamara and now Niall Cogley, the station has decided they are not going to let criticism go unanswered.
Cogley, the former Head of Sport in RTE, wrote a long letter, in which he defended TV3 on the O'Connell question, by pointing out that the camera had lingered on the picture of him lying prone on the ground. And he said he was not sure RTE would have done anything differently.
Cogley addressed the ad question:
The RWC is the main vehicle for world rugby to finance the game at every level over the following four years. It has been very successful in developing the tournament, in bringing in commercial and broadcast partners and in selling tickets and hospitality opportunities for the 48 matches. It has also developed the match day running orders to offer opportunities for their worldwide partners to advertise just before kick-off, immediately following the anthems and at half-time. No commercial broadcaster can afford to refuse these opportunities. The revenue generated ultimately all goes back into the development of the game.
In the Sunday Times today, Colin Coyle reports that TV3 have defended themselves against the charge of overloading their coverage with ads by pointing out that they could have had more ads.
Further down in Cogley's letter, he said that RTE had only broadcast 13 matches in 2011, while TV3 are showing all 40 in 2015.
Like his Irish Times colleague Brian O'Connor, who remarked that the TV3 panel sounded like 'a bunch of bank managers talking about their golf scores', Clerkin bemoaned the absence of an agent provocateur ('shit stirrer' as O'Connor put it) in the studio.
Cogley said that TV3 had consciously decided to go in a different direction.
And then Cogley produced the trump card. It's free.
The real winner this autumn is the licence-payer. TV3’s coverage of Rugby World Cup costs the Irish viewer nothing!
Read more: New Zealand Based Rugby Writer Makes Passionate Argument For Ireland World Cup Bid
