I finally saw it, that piece of televisual presentation that has had the masses stupefied. A lesson in how not to do the thing it most surely was, and by God let’s hope the lesson has been learned.

Step up Trevor Welch and TV3 for one of the shoddiest presentations you will see anywhere this year. I’m speaking about the draw for the hurling and football qualifiers that was made in the aftermath of the Clare/Tipperary Munster semi-final a few weeks ago. Having been at the match I wasn’t able to sample the “delights” of the draw, but it was quickly brought to my attention by the online comments that were ridiculing it in their droves.

Finally, I sat down a few nights ago and logged on to the TV3 website where the offending piece still lies. Perhaps it will have been removed by the time this column appears.

Now I’d be the first to say that presenting anything on live television is probably not easy, but viewers to a national station should still expect some basic level of production, especially when it features such a high profile event as All-Ireland Championship draws.

The first part of the draw consisted of the hurling qualifiers, and it passed off without much incident as Christy Cooney (now known as Cristoir O Cuana) and Nicky English drew the names out under the bowels of the Mackey Stand. Out of sight the tones of Trevor Welch bellowed out, offering “insightful” glimpses on each of the sides picked out.

That was fine we thought, no real damage done as yet. It was only when the football qualifier draw began that the problems began. Cristoir, at this stage joined by Limerick’s John Galvin, looked for all intents and purposes as if he was about to face another grilling from an Oireachtas Committee. Galvin looked non-plussed, probably called in as he was the closest inter-county Gaelic footballer to the venue.

The names were drawn out, and Trevor did his spiel – but the arse began to fall out of the item when he mislaid his notes on some of the counties. Cue a deafening silence, followed by Trevor flailing and helplessly spouting words to the effect of “I have my notes on XXX here somewhere, they are down at the bottom”. This must have happened at least four times – bear in mind that the camera was still focused on Cristoir and John, looking mortified, feeling they surely had better things to be doing at that moment in time instead of waiting for Trevor to find his notes so he could fill the viewer’s mind with innocuous information on the various counties in the draw.

It was rubbish – badly presented and disrespectful to the viewer. Why oh why could they not have kept it simple (most good things are)? A line or two on each county would have sufficed, there was no need for bullshit such as the Laois team wearing overcoats in the second half of a match over sixty years ago because it was raining so heavily (hilarious).

We aren’t children – treat us with a modicum of intelligence at least. Such shoddy work is unacceptable and should not be allowed to occur again. Perhaps TV3 thought the GAA audience was an unsophisticated bunch who didn’t give a damn about any old crap that was served up to them – well how wrong they were.

Trevor Welch is a veteran of the media game at this stage, and he knows that Sunday, June 21st was not his best day’s work.

Audiences are becoming increasingly immune to being treated as monkeys who lap up whatever is put in front of them. RTE cannot escape criticism either – while the quantity of their programmes this championship season cannot be criticised, the quality can. Debate at times is stifled, with a plethora of banal conversations taking place with tired, worn out clichéd musings filling the airwaves. The spat between Pat Spillane and Joe Brolly is threatening to become an unedifying sideshow (although in fairness the football has been so poor thus far that maybe this would be no bad thing).

We deserve intelligent debate – don’t treat your audience as some half wits. The GAA scene still lacks a Hook and Pope, Dunphy and Giles combination that brings an added depth to the game and is required viewing.

There is still plenty of the season left for amends to be made – hopefully TV3 will have read the script this time, and RTE will shock us with some new and insightful analysis. Over to you lads…