IHA must target the couch fans

Hockey Round-up: Last weekend's Irish Senior Cup finals between Instonians and Cork Harlequins in the men's event at Belfield and Pegasus against Hermes in the women's event, exercised the minds of the guardians of Sunday sport in Independent newspapers.

The pejoratively phrased question posted on their Unison website asked on Monday "whether it was right to broadcast live hockey yesterday". Both cup finals were shown in full on Sunday afternoon, the men's match going into 30 minutes of extra time.

Rather than rush to reply, "No, give us more F1 please," 81.8 per cent of respondents hit a yes vote. That represented a rare tangible show of support by the hockey public.

Last Sunday the Irish Hockey Association (IHA) took around 6,000 at the gate in Belfield and gave away about 100 complimentary tickets. Also, under-16s were admitted free, which would have rounded the attendance at 1,000.

Given that over 40,000 play the sport in Ireland, it seems like a pretty poor showing. Every wet weekend people ask why the game is not given more space in the media. The answer is easy. It's because the sport can rustle up at most 1,000 bodies to support the premier event of the year, scheduled in the spring (the forecast was good even if the weather wasn't) and staged at an agreeable venue.

That number also represented support for four teams in two finals, not two teams in one final, and crossed both the men's and women's games. In addition, one of the sides, Hermes, was not just a Dublin side but based locally in Donnybrook. It averaged out at 250 spectators per team.

Given the television coverage, it seems pointless to be negative about a positive development but there are a number of simple things the IHA could do, which other competing sports do as a matter of practice.

The biggest club finals anywhere take place in GAA on St Patrick's Day. Even the GAA advertise and constantly plug the Croke Park event. In rugby, they advertise matches along the DART line - hockey territory - and actively target schools.

At Belfield there were no signs to guide cars to the parking areas (two teams from Belfast, one from Cork) and after the finals, as people departed, there were clamped car wheels as far as the horizon. So many good things but a lot more to do.