GAA keeping managers on tight leash

During the summer, a highly-regarded team official from a Munster county approached this column with a query.

He wanted to know how Davy Fitzgerald managed to get away with it so often. How could he make so many negative remarks about referees and not be reprimanded.

If he had waited long enough, he’d have read Brian Cody’s “criminal” comments about Barry Kelly and realised it takes a hell of a lot for an inter-county manager to be punished for an errant tongue.