Fogarty Forum: Cian Lynch owed an exoneration

Hurling's best player was the subject of a controversial sending off, Cian Lynch shown a straight red card for what could only be described as an entanglement

Cian Lynch of NUI Galway walks away after being sent off by referee Fergal Horgan during the Fitzgibbon Cup Final match at IT Carlow. Picture: Matt Browne/Sportsfile

Nine years ago, Kilkenny won a battle weeks after Cork had knocked them out of the All-Ireland senior hurling championship.

Contesting Henry Shefflin’s dismissal in their quarter-final loss to Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s side in Thurles, they convinced the Central Hearings Committee that Shefflin shouldn’t have been shown a first yellow card for a flick on Lorcán McLoughlin.

And so Shefflin’s exemplary disciplinary record was restored. That was the whole point of the exercise - Brian Cody, then county chairman Ned Quinn and Kilkenny great Eddie Keher were adamant that the charge be expunged and the record corrected. A double yellow, there was no ensuing suspension but a point had to be made, a principle honoured.

Seeing as they lost Shefflin before half-time, it may have appeared like sour grapes but there was a genuine grievance with the decision. “Justice has been done,” Keher told local radio at the time. “The important thing that we’re trying to get across is that we had no problem whatsoever with Cork or the result of the match or anything else, but of the injustice of the referee (Barry Kelly) in that case in the way he treated probably the best hurler of all time.”

Nine years on and the game’s best player is again the subject of a controversial sending off, Cian Lynch shown a straight red card for what could only be described as an entanglement with UL captain Bryan O’Mara in the closing stages of Saturday’s Fitzgibbon Cup final.

TV footage of the incident comes from a different vantage point to the one linesman Seán Cleere had of it before he advised referee Fergal Horgan that the two-time hurler of the year be dismissed. It would appear to be a better view too as if anything it was his hurley that was kicked out of his hand, not an attempt by him to trip or illegally impede O’Mara, as UL selector Anthony Nash appeared to make out to Cleere before he raised his flag to get Horgan’s attention.

O’Mara may have held Lynch scoreless but the Limerick man was still conducting the NUI Galway attack. It is hardly beyond the realms of possibility that his absence or at least the very shock of it rocked his team-mates so much that they faltered like they did to lose their lead and the game in the remaining minutes.

Lynch, like Shefflin, would appear to be the type of player keen to move on from such a disappointment. It is not as if it an exoneration is going to do the player or NUI Galway any good now that the cup has been handed over.

However, for a whole host of reasons in particular fairness and Lynch’s reputation, the university are right to officially query the decision. If calls such as David Gough’s to dismiss five players in Armagh 16 days ago are to be upheld and applauded, for the sake of the disciplinary system’s integrity those which are simply inaccurate have to be corrected. It actually should be the GAA’s higher education officials who tackle the matter proactively, not NUI Galway and/or Lynch having to apply for a hearing, but then that simply isn’t going to happen.

It’s not that Lynch’s record is as squeaky clean as Shefflin’s. Okay, he doesn’t seem to row with referees as much as Shefflin but there was that dangerous MMA-like manoeuvre against Tim O’Mahony in last year’s All-Ireland final and he has been red carded for Patrickswell. However, he has been clearly wronged.

In the context of his fellow Limerick half-forward Gearóid Hegarty being deservedly sent off by Horgan the previous Saturday, his county might also take an interest in Lynch being absolved. Then again, they may consider the public outrage at Lynch’s sending off is enough but for the second league running Limerick’s discipline is a hot topic.

John Kiely, Seán Finn and even Hegarty himself - “We definitely looked at it after the first game or two that we were giving away too many frees, without a doubt,” he said of their early part of their 2021 league campaign - have spoken frankly about their need to brush up their act. What Lynch did shouldn’t be mentioned in same breath as Hegarty’s act but, seeing as Limerick are there to be toppled, it will.

At 26, it’s almost unfair that Lynch can pluck some magic from his trunk of tricks against young men, many of whom are only beginning to ease up on the Clearasil. However, his presence has lit up the Fitzgibbon Cup. After the final whistle, nobody would have blamed him if he made like the wind for the dressing room. Yet there he was swallowing his anguish to sign autographs and pose for selfies.

It’s not often the game owes an individual anything but on this occasion it does. Lynch won’t get an apology but he wholly deserves the red card to be wiped.

Smarting Tyrone can’t be too hard on GAA

According to Tyrone joint-manager Brian Dooher, they are determined to move on from the suspension episode.

“The way we look at it is that we have drawn a line under it,” he said on Sunday. “It doesn’t serve us any purpose in dwelling on it any longer, what is done is done. We are not going to change it, we took the suspensions we got, the players have served them and will be available for selection next week along with the boys that played today. It is in the past and we are looking to the future.”

Beating Kildare, and thus picking up a first 2021 Division 1 win, without the banned quartet of Pádraig Hampsey, Peter Harte, Kieran McGeary, and Michael McKernan sure does make it easier for Tyrone to put the penalties behind them. Also, the county, as Dooher’s partner Feargal Logan knows only too well having represented players in front of the GAA’s disciplinary bodies, is used to facing such problems in All-Ireland SFC title defending years. In 2004, Stephen O’Neill was given a four-week suspension for clashing with Éamonn Fitzmaurice who also received the same punishment.

“The Battle of Omagh” came in 2006 after which three players were issued bans which like Dublin’s four were later rescinded. In 2009, Ryan McMenamin was handed an eight-week ban arising from that February’s Division 1 games against Kerry. Later in the campaign, Tommy McGuigan picked up a four-week penalty following an incident in the fixture with Derry.

A study of other defending champions would likely show them to be as sparky in the early part of the following year, Limerick being an example, but it is believed Tyrone would have taken cases to the Central Appeals Committee had more information been furnished to them. Privately, they feel hard done by but after they were offered a second extension for last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, they can’t be too angry with the GAA’s competition bodies.

GAA’s sister organisations must look at bigger picture

On a weekend where Sarsfields and Slaughtneil’s All-Ireland senior camogie semi-final was moved from Cavan to Wexford, the onus on the Camogie (CA) and Ladies Gaelic Football Associations (LGFA) to merge with the GAA was highlighted again.

As the Gaelic Players Association call for minds to focus, it’s not as if it hasn’t been tried. In 2013, then GAA president Liam O’Neill begun work in amalgamating the organisations and there was agreement in principle from the GAA and CA but the stumbling block was the LGFA.

“It wasn’t just their leadership, this was their full Central Council,” he said back in 2020. “Every county there said ‘no’ so that was that because you can’t force a marriage, you can’t force a union and people didn’t want it.”

O’Neill spelt out the issue: “What I was proposing wasn’t easy because if it was easy it would have been done long ago. If you wanted change, you had to dismantle three organisations and build a new one. That’s not easy because people have positions and they look at ‘what’s in it for me, how is it going to affect me?’”

Moves like the Camogie Association, who had no sponsor for their blue riband competition last year, to avail of the GAA’s commercial department in procuring backers are positive but if the GAA family is to become one, the sister organisations have to look at the bigger picture.

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