Sport is more than test of skill

I WILL tell you something I have heard on more than a few occasions in various press boxes up and down the country: “Ah Flynn, you’re showing yourself up again, Ballyhea, only a junior hurler.”

Usually it's prompted by something I've said about an incident that just occurred on the field of play, something physical.

Straight off, let me emphasise that I do not condone dirty play. In fact I despise it and have no respect for those who indulge in it. But I don't have any problem at all with hard, physical play, even when sometimes it might appear, to the untrained eye, to have gone over the top.