Andy Farrell's first media engagement as Ireland boss wasn't all plain sailing as IRFU excluded certain media

Andy Farrell’s first media engagement with the Irish media as new Ireland head coach wasn’t all plain sailing on Monday.

Rather than hold a conference that accommodated all media that wanted to attend, Joe Schmidt’s successor adopted an invite-only approach that has been used in recent times by IRFU high-performance boss David Nucifora.

Only certain invited media organisations were permitted to attend, with others excluded from Farrell’s first press appearance as the boss. 

This handpicked approach to generating publicity caused a stir online after one excluded media took to Twitter to voice its disapproval. 

Pat McCarry, who works in the online/broadcast sector and has written books on Irish rugby, tweeted: “Andy Farrell up for his first press engagement of his term tomorrow and the IRFU is hand-picking journalists and outlets again while excluding others… Pathetic state of affairs.”

https://twitter.com/MickCorryPA/status/1209398442730147840

McCarry followed up after the conference had taken place by tweeting some agency pictures with the text, ‘Nice and cosy’. 

In between his tweets, there had been online calls by Irish rugby fans for journalists attending the session to refuse to go, but the Irish rugby media pack has been disunited for some time with previous calls to boycott after journalists were excluded from sessions going unheeded. 

You can only wish but no-one did when they did the same thing for Nucifora. Different reporters are getting different excuses and reasons for being excluded. Joke.

— Pat McCarry (@patmccarry) December 22, 2019

https://twitter.com/alomaofigaroll/status/1208937775803895808

There shouldn't be a first question. Should be boycotted

— Blue is the Colour (@Jacksarback) December 23, 2019

Totally agree Brendan. All journalists should unite together and steer clear of this presser. Poor stuff from the IRFU.

— Shane Sullivan 🇮🇪 (@shanesull84) December 23, 2019

Same journos constantly get “exclusives” or ahead of stories for irish rugby – great all inclusive message given out there – team of (those of) us (that stick to the script) …. disappointing other journos didn’t stand up for their colleagues by not attending #IRFU https://t.co/Pw0xKDQpQu

— Iseult Cody (@iseultcody) December 23, 2019

Well done Pat on highlighting this – it's a catch 22 for those invited but it questions the IRFU to control output like this. Naturally those invited are not going to raise controversy for fear of future exclusion. Fans are the ultimate losers.

— ger (@stranglemint) December 23, 2019

3 different:
1. I wasn't in Japan (others that were in Japan not invited)
2. We haven't hit an unspecified quota of U20, Sevens & Women's rugby stories (even though we cover it all)
3. IRFU prefer relaxed, informal, smaller briefings for Philip Browne, Nucifora and now Farrell

— Pat McCarry (@patmccarry) December 22, 2019

Nice and cosy https://t.co/Ed9uX8J4As

— Pat McCarry (@patmccarry) December 23, 2019

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