Members of the media covering last Sunday's Allianz Football League Division 3 game between Wicklow and Westmeath in Aughrim had to sit in the stand after being denied access to the press areas.

The press box on the terrace site of Echelon Park was occupied by members of the Wicklow backroom team, while their Westmeath counterparts were granted use of the area that is also used by reporters in the stand. Backroom teams using press facilities is a bugbear of many reporters, but it seems things were taken to a new level last weekend.

Brendan Lawrence of the Wicklow People wrote: "This farcical and disrespectful development forced local and national reporters to sit out in the stand, balancing their laptops on their knees, with no access to power and having to constantly allow spectators in and out of the narrow aisles.

"Reporters have strict deadlines to keep to and many have on-the-whistle reports to file, and to be forced to sit out in the stand with no facilities whatsoever is disappointing and embarrassing from a Wicklow GAA point of view, with one reporter remarking that he had never seen the likes of it."

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