Rugby star crosses the line – but there’s no roar of approval this time

In slow motion, it looked like he was treating Cullen’s face like a bowling ball, looking for the holes where he would put his fingers. Even if it wasn’t deliberate – and we will never know what went through Quinlan’s mind in that split-second – it was still a dangerous thing to do.

IT’S difficult to imagine who must feel worse: Tomás O’Leary or Alan Quinlan? Two of Munster’s eight representatives on the forthcoming British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa won’t even be boarding the plane, the first because of serious injury, the second because of suspension.

The buzz that was created by the news of the big Irish selection has dissipated somewhat, no matter that Paul O’Connell remains captain.

Munster fans have reason to suspect that all of the hype about the overall selection was most unhelpful in its distraction before the Heineken Cup semi-final against Leinster.

O’Leary is clearly deserving of enormous sympathy. He received a very serious injury through no fault of his own and faces a lengthy time out of the game. He deserved his selection because of the immense dedication he brought to improving his performances.

On his side is age, but he knows how hard it will be to return to his old form after such a serious injury and how much of a challenge he faces to regain his place on the Munster and Irish teams, let alone be in contention to go on the next Lions tour in 2013, which is an awful long way off.

He can take inspiration from Donal Lenihan, wrongly put off the departure plane in 1983 because of misdiagnosis of a hernia, who later came back as a player and manager for the Lions.

The size of Quinlan’s punishment for his grappling with Leo Cullen’s face during the Heineken Cup semi-final has posed awful dilemmas for Munster fans, who do not wish to condone serious foul play but are still sympathetic to the price Quinlan has to pay for his wrongdoing.

To be suspended for 12 playing weeks at any time is stiff, but when that period takes in a Lions’ tour it has to be asked if the punishment suits the crime.

As Quinlan is 34, he will never again get the chance of something that is regarded as the pinnacle of an Irish player’s career. To go from the excitement of his surprise selection to the trauma of being prevented from going because of suspension must be almost too much for him to bear.

It’s made worse by the fact that his Irish career was punctuated by some very bad luck with injuries – none more so than when scoring the try against Argentina in the 2003 World Cup that kept Ireland in the tournament – and many selection decisions that went against him.

Munster fans also know Quinlan always committed himself fully to winning while wearing the jersey – which is why they were so happy for him to get on the pitch in the last few minutes of the 2006 Heineken Cup final after a season ruined by serious injury.

He is also a very amiable and straightforward person to meet off the pitch. Indeed this, almost as much as his playing ability, seemed to have won him a place on the Lions’ squad.

It was always most improbable that Quinlan would escape a guilty verdict once cited by the television match official for something the referee didn’t see on the day.

Although he did not poke his finger into Cullen’s eye, and the slow-motion television replays show he had “made contact” with Cullen’s “eye area”, as the European Rugby Cup statement on Wednesday evening put it, to all intents and purposes it appeared to be what is commonly called gouging.

However, Quinlan was not found guilty of deliberate or intentional gouging but of coming accidentally into contact with Cullen’s eye area. Even if it wasn’t deliberate, it was still a dangerous thing to do.

If a French player – and it is something that unfortunately can be common in the French game – had done it to an Irish player, there would have been outrage.

There is a line that all sportsmen – be they professional or amateur – must not cross when it comes to contact sports. They must respect the safety of other players and seek to treat others as they would want to be treated themselves.

A player expects to be hit as hard as possible in the tackle and do the same to his opponent. That is part of the game. But he does not expect to have somebody try to grab his eyes, spear-tackle him (remember our upset when Brian O’Driscoll was assaulted by two All-Blacks at the start of the 2005 Lions tour?), be straight-arm tackled as he runs at speed, have his head kicked as he lies on the ground or his testicles grabbed and squeezed while pinned at the bottom of a ruck.

People expect Munster players to risk their own safety in pursuing their objectives, but they do not expect them to assault the opposition outside of the laws of the game.

There is an honour involved in the wearing of the jersey, as generations of players have been keen to emphasise. The phrase that a player does not own the jersey, but borrows it, has a lot of resonance.

Quinlan had a responsibility to the jersey. Assaulting an opponent in this fashion, at a time when Leinster possessed a commanding lead, is not the way Munster players should operate, no matter how desperate they have become. That brings us to the issue as to whether the punishment fitted the crime. This is where Munster fans are conflicted in particular. They know there must be punishment, but it should be proportionate.

This is not just a 12-week ban – it is far more severe than that given what Quinlan will miss because of it.

In some respects, Quinlan may be suffering from the need of the rugby authorities to show they will punish foul play severely. There is a good reason for that. The interest in rugby in Ireland at present is just phenomenal.

WHEN you consider the size of our population and compare it to the numbers going to big matches and watching them on television, then Ireland possibly ranks second only to New Zealand for interest in the sport currently. There may be many players in populous countries such as England, Australia and France, but rugby is a smaller minority sport in those countries than it is in Ireland.

With more and more kids now becoming interested in playing rugby, and the physical dangers obvious, parents have to be reassured that their children will not be subjected to skullduggery such as gouging and that it would never be tolerated where detected.

The controversy about Quinlan reminds me of the fuss caused by Roy Keane’s assault on a Manchester City footballer called Alf-Inge Haaland some years ago. Keane boasted in his ghost-written autobiography of how he had deliberately targeted Haaland towards the end of a game that was meaningless to Manchester United because the title was won already and Keane did not care about a suspension for being sent off.

Keane’s behaviour was disgraceful on two fronts: the fact that it was premeditated and that he subsequently boasted about it. He received another suspension for what was said in the book, but it was nowhere near as severe as the one Quinlan received, even though Haaland’s injuries kept him out of the game for months.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.