Jack O’Connor has warned his Kerry players to show more respect toreferees.
Chairman Patrick O’Sullivan told county board delegates this week that O’Connor had spoken to seniorplayers about the team’s attitude towards match officials. After a strong condemnation of some players’ behaviour by Valentia delegate Michael O’Donoghue, O’Sullivan said: "I can reveal that on Tuesday night [February 14], Jack O’Connor brought some of the senior players together after training and laid down the law, as to what is acceptable and not acceptable as regards behaviour towards match officials."
O’Connor’s words come after former manager Páidí Ó Sé last week branded some of Kerry’s players as "whingers".
Meanwhile, former Dublin boss Paul Caffrey claims Kerry were more hurt by losing last year’s All-Ireland final to the Blues than the famous 1982 decider to Offaly, which ended their five-in-a-row aspirations.
"I’d have a lot of friends in Kerry and they’d say it was even worse than ’82," he said. "That’s saying something. The Kerry players that I have seen this year are driven in a way that I haven’t seen in the last four or five years."
Caffrey was at both the Dublin-Kerry and Munster-Leinster games in recent weeks and has been taken aback by the appetite of the Kerry players.
"One thing I have noticed already is how hungry the Kerry fellas are," said Caffrey. "I was in Parnell Park on Sunday and I thought the three Kerry fellas were playing with a different type of passion than you’d normally see at this time."
Caffrey believes Dublin’s recent indiscipline is a symptom of how difficult they will find this season.
"I think Dublin are going to find every game this year tough, in a way they haven’t found in the last two years," said Caffrey. "Every team they play in the league is going to be up for it — and physically, maybe that is why the little bits of indiscipline have been creeping in.
"I just see some of them not coping as well as they should with the little bit of physicality that is coming at them."
Caffrey feels the bonhomie shown to Dublin last September is at an end, adding: "It was a once-off and I would firmly believe that that lasted for 10 days and the begrudgery starts setting in. My fear is just how physically these guys are going to cope with what’s coming at them This is going to impact hugely on the mentality in Dublin."
Meanwhile, Ulster referees’ committee chairman Joe Jordan is urging all whistlers to adopt a more common sense approach for the remainder of the Allianz Football League and not to be spooked by assessors.
He said: "The fact that quite a number of cards have been issued with several of these rescinded on appeal does nothing to enhance the image of the GAA.
"I know from the body language of many referees that they become uptight, even petrified, because of the presence of assessors but this is the only means by which we can help to improve refereeing standards."
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, February 23, 2012
