I was wondering what improvements SBS are considering making to their coverage of the Ericsson Cup next season. I appreciate that you guys have limited capabilities (ie no money) but surely a little more can be done.
I was particularly annoyed by last night's efforts to convey what happened at the Glory vs Gippsland game. Having been at the game myself I was most curious to know more about a couple of incidents that made for a very interesting match.
Firstly Gippsland were given a corner early in the game that led to a goal. The decision to give the corner by the referee was appalling and brought the crowd to near-riot. If you can imagine a corner taken by the Gippsland player which sailed 20 feet in the air and went straight out again and then the ref says its another corner you can see what I mean. And your viewers will just have to imagine it because they never got to see it.
Right after the Gippsland players taunted the crowd in a very provocative manner, in a manner in fact that could be argued to be bringing the game into disrepute.
SBS mentioned none of this.
Lastly a penalty was rather controversially given to Perth in the dieing minutes of the game. There was probably nothing wrong with giving it, except that it happened off the ball and many would like to see what actually occurred. In the ensuing chaos Gippsland players spat the dummy and 5 minutes of time was wasted with lots of pushing and shoving and general ugliness. It was very tense stuff.
A Gippsland player tried to attack the referee but was restrained!
SBS mentioned none of this!!!
Whoever was summarising the game in fact made it out to be a run-of-the-mill affair.
Now I'm not trying to cause bother here over a one-off incident, but this is typical of the way most matches (apart from the match of the day) get treated. Many people who I watch Glory with week after week watch SBS hoping to see something about many of the strange things we've seen happen this season but SBS isn't interested. We thought last night would be an exception after such incredible things happened.. but no..
If the people in charge of this program think they are doing a good job of summarising the weekend's activity and believing people are seeing everything they want to see then they are just fooling themselves.