Angry Fans
By contrast, football – and especially the overhyped dead beat brand of peil the Dubs serve up – is the 2007 poor relation. But, just when we thought it might be going away, the big ‘‘D’ for Discipline word’ still hangs over everyone as Uachtarán Nickey and the Croker Empire strike back …
COMMENT of the Week goes to Limerick Nomad for summing up how many of their fans feel about their hurlers’ victory over Tipp.
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THE GAA should stand up and take a bow.Are they the worst run organisation on this planet? In one day alone, they show us everything that is inept about the organisation we love. • Referee starts play despite the fact that the Limerick captain is down and about to be stretchered off. • Umpires can’t decide about the perfectly valid Armstrong point between the posts so they wait for the Leitrim goalkeeper to decide. He decides a wide. • Referee stops play with a minute to go to half-time because his earpiece isn't working. Leitrim are in possession and building a counter-attack. Resulting throwball in the Leitrim half results in Galway possession and a vital point. • What is the job spec for GAA referees? • Joyce goal ruled a foul after he stands shoulder to shoulder with Leitrim keeper. Same situation as Geraghty’s goal in first Dub match. • 29 man brawl in Carlow-Louth minor match. I suppose the Semple Gate players will get the blame for this too. • Dublin supporters in the pubs decide the throw-in time for the Croke Park game. • Pitch invasion by Limerick supporters. Better timekeeping and a hooter (AFL-style ) would fix this immediately. • Gate receipts for MonaghanDerry match stolen.
Just as well Galway won, OAM. Otherwise, I’d say you’d really be annoyed. Still, you can hardly blame the GAA top brass for stealing the Casement Park gate receipts. Straight red for that.
JUST a quick comment on the whole Cork v Clare hurling discipline issue. Surely the GAA and their committees could use video conferencing in this modern age of technology? The players put enough time and effort in, so they shouldn’t have to work at all, let alone take days off. The GAA is in serious danger of being surpassed by the FAI and that’s a scary thought indeed.
Video conferencing could be a useful idea, Brian. After all, even the courts use it in sensitive cases. But the GAA in serious danger of being surpassed by Messers Delaney, Staunton & Co? Now, that would be scary. Unlikely, though. I’d say if the FAI lads went to use video conferencing they’d probably forget to plug in the camera. Tick in the Book for you, Brian, for raising that chilling spectre.
To listen and read Gerald McCarthy's defence of his players was to me most disappointing. How can he justify the behaviour of three of his most senior and most respected players when the game had not even begun. He talks in your paper about unblemished records being ruined by the decision of the CCC to punish the players for what happened. Rightly so, they deserved to be punished. Their unblemished records were blemished by their own doing. Standards on GAA playing pitches have taken a downturn in recent years and I commend the Competitions Committee for taking a stand. If this action was taken more frequently we would revert to the days when watching a game was enjoyable and the after match talk was about skills and sportsmanship and not the brawls which have become all too commonplace.
I WANT to congratulate Gerald McCarthy on his article in the ‘Examiner’ last week. How dare Nickey Brennan hang up on Gerald during a conversation. He is long enough dealing with Cork people to have known that when the Cork Hurling Manager talks, he will have the backing of hundreds of thousands of Cork supporters in every county in Ireland and abroad. As President of the GAA, Mr Brennan should act on behalf of all GAA people and not just the Mercs and Perks crowd who populate Croke Park from Monday to Friday.
At least Gerald did a bit better than poor ould Doctor Hook with his Medicine Band back in 1971 when he tried to ring Sylvia and her Mother. Remember? Sylvia was ‘too busy to come to the phone’ and the Operator kept looking for ‘forty cents more for the next three minutes’. Sounds like Nickey gave Gerald more than his ‘forty cents’ worth. Oh, and Mercs and Perks in Croke Park? Tick in the Book for that ‘below the fan belt’ comment. Surely, you don’t want them going around on bicycles like a bunch of Green ministers?
A CHARA, Dessie Farrell and the GPA should give a sincere thank you to Nickey Brennan. His attitude to the whole Semple Gate affair has made the GPA a hundred times more popular and appealing that it could ever hope to be. Nickey is well known for his dislike of the popularity of the Munster championship. He cannot accept that the Leinster Championship is a very poor relation when it comes to excitement and entertainment. Hence Cork and Clare were made suffer. God only knows how he is felt after watching the two classic games inThurles. Not forgetting Tipp and Limerick for providing another thriller.
The GPA’s role in this controversy is a bit like Sherlock Holmes’s ould dog. Maybe you heard about the mongrel that didn’t bark in the night when his master was strangled, or poisoned or whatever.The GPA’s silence on this has been deafening, given the close relations they always seemed to have with Cork’s hurling panel. But, maybe Dessie and the lads will get off the leash on it yet. Or is it another case of their bark being worse than their bite?
THERE’S not enough of these ‘one month’ bans. I also expect one month for Tiger Woods for banging his club on the ground, one month for the Serbs who went mad against England recently, one month for Frankie Dettori who jumped off a horse aggressively and one month for Nickey Brennan.
Straight Red Card to you,Trevor for wildly swinging your golf club, horse whip or hurley at Nickey like that. It automatically carries your favourite punishment. Yes. A one month ban.
AN FEAR RUA , Dubliner2 last week was concerned that Gerald McCarthy used the expression ‘absolute disgrace’ a hundred times. Of course, so much that happened in Thurles is an absolute disgrace. It is an ‘absolute disgrace’ that all the players involved were denied natural justice and that there was no transparency in the disciplinary action applied. It is an ‘absolute disgrace’ that there was a total lack of consistency and complete bias in the application of penalties in respect of more serious breaches of discipline which occurred on the same day and in subsequent weeks. It is an ‘absolute disgrace’ that they advanced such idiotic and logic defying reasons for this bias and that those responsible for staging the game were not admonished for their management ineptitude or penalised by the cancellation of forthcoming games at that venue. It is an ‘absolute disgrace’ that Gerald McCarthy was treated by Nickey Brennan in such a contemptuous and ignorant manner in a telephone conversation initiated by Gerald.
OK, Cork3. I think we get your point. Otherwise, I suppose we too would be an ‘absolute disgrace’.
WHAT another great weekend in a great Summer for fans of the GAA. But remember there are no medals given out in June. Did anyone notice that John Leahy did more running on the field than some of his players? Your days are over Johnny Boy! Now get off the field and allow the refs, linesmen and the Tipp players make their own decisions.
You’re not the only one unhappy about Johnny’s Side Line Shenanigans. I see he got an eight weeks side line ban for having a ‘go’ at officials but got out from under it for Sunday’s game by lodging an appeal. Yet he was at it again in Limerick.
DOES anyone have any ideas as to how we could clone Pat McEnaney? We often, and sadly justifiably, deplore the standard of refereeing in football matches, so we need to give credit when it's due. Not only was he pretty much flawless reffing the Dubs v Meath replay in Croker, but his style actively contributed to the quality of the game. Perhaps the GAA could pay transport costs for all the other refs to come and watch Pat when he takes charge, or replace the referees’ coaching manual with the words ‘Watch Pat McEnaney’. Baz (email)
SHAME on Seanie McMahon for re-starting the game without first ensuring that Damian Reale was safely off the field. A cardinal error for any referee to make under any circumstances.
Seanie is one of those hurling refs who – rightly in my view – let’s the game flow. Maybe the stretcher bearers could have been a bit sprightlier? As regards cloning referees, maybe there’s some class of an EU grant for Artificial Insemination that the GAA could claim?
OVERALL a win… is a win… is a win but nothing has been actually won yet, except a bit more pride in the jersey, team, county, ourselves, who care most deeply for the game of hurling in the county of our birth or/and allegiance. Good luck to Tipp, the majority of whose supporters were very gracious in defeat, as we were humble in victory, I hope. It would be a great shame if we were both to make timid exits on the back of this most enthralling epic over the last three weekends. I walk a little taller this evening. I live for days like this and, God willing, some day, the biggest day of all! Luimneach Abú!
Good to hear that Tipp and Limerick fans behaved so sportingly. Maybe the so-called ‘Dub-Be-Lin’ fans polluting the Dinneen Hill Sixteen with their loutishness might copy them. We won’t hold our breath, but.
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