RTÉ’s Summer of Sport steps up a gear this weekend with the much-anticipated launch of the 2021 GAA Championship season across TV, Radio, Online and Social.
Free to air coverage of 20 Championship games will be shown across the summer and will continue into the autumn with club action from local communities from all four provinces.
Highlights include live coverage of all six provincial finals in football and hurling, as well as the All-Ireland semi-finals and finals in both codes, along with the Joe McDonagh Cup final.
Television coverage starts this Sunday, 27th June, as the Munster Hurling Championship begins with rivals Clare and Waterford facing each other once again in Semple Stadium, Thurles, throwing in at 3:30 PM
The Ulster GAA Senior Football Championship will see Down v Donegal get underway at 1 PM. 200 lucky supporters will be attendance at both games but other than that the reliance will be on watching or listening from afar.
RTÉ Radio 1 has the exclusive national radio rights to broadcast GAA and, this weekend alone, RTÉ Radio teams will broadcast from 15 matches across both Saturday and Sunday. There will be live commentary from Croke Park on Saturday for both the Division 2 and Division 1 Ladies Football National League finals.
Joanne Cantwell will be in the studio for the Sunday Game Live on each match day, along with a team of panellists for pre-match build-up, comprehensive analysis at half time and after the final whistle has been blown.
Match commentary will be provided by Marty Morrissey, Ger Canning and Darragh Moloney.
Des Cahill will once again round up the weekend’s action each Sunday night on The Sunday Game. Studio panellists will include, amongst many others, Henry Shefflin, Brendan Cummins, Donal Óg Cusack, Jackie Tyrell, Anthony Daly, Tomás Ó’ Sé, Colm Cooper, Pat Spillane, Éamonn Fitzmaurice, Ciarán Whelan, Colm O’ Rouke, Kevin McStay, Oisín McConville, Sean Cavanagh, Anna Geary, Noëlle Healy and Ursula Jacob.
On RTÉ Radio 1 every weekend, Jacqui Hurley, Darren Frehill, John Murray, Joanne Cantwell and Des Cahill will present Saturday Sport and Sunday Sport. Pauric Lodge will be right there on the side-line bringing the noise and colour from the pitch straight to your home. John Mullane, Shane McGrath, Micheál Donoghue, Brian Carroll, Kate Kelly and Aoife Sheehan are amongst the radio panellists for hurling and camogie each weekend. Martin McHugh, Kyle Coney, John Casey, Eamon O’ Hara, Aidan O’ Rourke, Denise Masterson, Cora Staunton and Fiona McHale will cast a critical eye over Gaelic football.
The Throw-In is new to Friday nights on RTÉ Radio 1. Damian Lawlor will have all the latest news, interviews and previews ahead of the weekend’s Gaelic Games Championship action. Game On on RTÉ 2FM continues weekdays from 6pm throughout the summer with all the latest Championship reaction and analysis.
RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta will be bringing listeners a bumper summer of sports coverage as they have Irish-language radio rights to all GAA Championship matches, and will have live commentary, reporting and analysis on its sports shows, with coverage of up to twenty football matches, and fifteen hurling games. Analysts will include Kevin Cassidy, Michael Rice, Lorcán Ó Máirtín, Tomás Ó Sé, Coman Goggins, Máire Ní Bhraonáin, Tomás Ó Flatharta, Joe Connolly, Cathal Moore, Pat Fleury, Gary Brennan, Stephen Joyce and Charlie Vernon.
“The Championship is an integral part of any sporting year regardless of timing and is central to RTÉ Sport across all platforms,” said Group Head of Sport Declan McBennett.
“The thrill of championship clashes and the rivalries both local and across provinces is the stuff that memories are made of which each year producing new heroes for each generation. RTÉ Sport puts a huge value on being central to each and all of those stories on tv radio news and online.”
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