Women in Sport: It was appropriate enough that the Women in Sport conference, 'Action4Progress', organised by the European Year Of Education Through Sport (EYES 2004), should be hosted by Croke Park just a day after one of the biggest occasions in the women's sporting calendar. Mary Hannigan reports

Over 20,000 had turned up on Sunday to watch the senior and junior football finals, an attendance that was, in fact, a disappointment for those who had hoped for a turnout closer to 30,000.

For Sue Ramsbottom, though, one of Gaelic football's greats, 20,000 was a vast improvement on the 'crowd' at her Croke Park debut. "When I first played here with Laois," she said, pointing out the window on to the pitch, "I could hear my mother roaring at me from the stand".

There has, then, she insisted, been progress, certainly in terms of public support for women's sport, "it's not all gloom and doom", she said.

It was a positive offering from Ramsbottom after contributions that had, until then, largely focused on the problems confronting women in sport.

One of these, as stressed by Jimmy Deenihan TD, the Fine Gael spokesman on sport and one of architects of the Oireachtas report on Women in Sport, was a lack of media coverage.

Deenihan quoted the findings of a study carried out over a 10-day period last year when it was found that just 69 of 2,687 sports photos published in five national newspapers featured women.

The consensus from the contributing delegates was that if young girls were to become involved in sport they needed sporting role models, particularly from their own localities, but with few exceptions - Mayo footballer Cora Staunton being one - the media weren't helping them find them.

Ronan Ó Coisdealbha of TG4, who give extensive coverage to women's Gaelic football, held a workshop on advising sports organisations how to counter this problem and promote the profile of female athletes through the media.

He held the Ladies Gaelic Football Association of Ireland up as the example to all on how to promote your sport, listing its promotional efforts to gain media coverage and also pointing to the quality of their website. "It is up to each sport to be proactive, like the Ladies Association, in generating media coverage, rather than waiting for the media to approach them looking for information," he said.

Irish women's hockey coach Riet Kuper also spoke of the importance of cooperation with the media but warned fellow coaches to be wary dealing with reporters, citing her own experience of what she viewed as unfair criticism and negative coverage.

She said Irish hockey coaches would be advised not to make negative comments (about other coaches, teams, etc) via the media while her players had already been told not to comment on other players and to be wary of answering "suggestive questions".

Julie McKeever, of the Irish Fly-fishing Association, questioned Kuper on this approach to media coverage, asking "is any publicity not good publicity - particularly for minority sports?".

Kuper replied "no", but McKeever sounded like a woman who wouldn't object to headlines of 'Scandal in Irish Fly-fishing" if it got her sport some attention.

Apart from media concerns the key issue of the day was the crucial need, notably for health reasons, to encourage and facilitate Primary schoolgirls to get involved in sport, not least to counteract obesity, the associated rise in diabetes and the fact that one in four Irish women is likely to suffer from osteoporosis in later life. Just 33 per cent of women participate in sport, compared to 62 per cent of men.

"One of the great challenges, both in Ireland and internationally, is increasing the level of participation by women in sports," said EYES 2004 co-ordinator Glenna Gallagher. "The benefits to health, personal development and great competition make the issue a no-brainer - this conference was about fleshing out some of the issues behind these challenges and sparking ideas to help meet them."