Ó Sé decision has full support

LARRY TOMPKINS has welcomed the fact that Kerry captain Darragh Ó Sé has been cleared to play against Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final.

It's not too often I'd say this, but I agree totally with the Cork manager, as would any true football supporter. The only way to play a team, to beat a team (I think Cork will prevail), is at their best, and without their brilliant captain, Kerry are most certainly not that.

As to the circumstances surrounding his controversial reinstatement, and again, it's not often I'm in total agreement with GAA officialdom, I believe the Kerry County Board were absolutely right in what they did. Frequently in club games that are held just before big inter-county occasions, if there is an inter-county star playing, he will be provoked by the opposition, liberties taken that otherwise might not, on the assumed grounds that he can't/won't/daren't retaliate.

I wasn't in Gallarus, so I can't say that was what was going on in this instance, but it does happen, the claim is in there that this kind of carry-on did provoke the retaliation from Ó Sé, and if I had a player sent off in such controversial circumstances, damn right I'd do something about it. Miss an All-Ireland semi-final for lashing back with an elbow at a guy holding your jersey? Sorry mate, don't think so.

This whole caper didn't highlight, as some would claim, that where inter-county players are concerned, there is no justice. In fact, it highlights almost the opposite there is wholesale injustice. These guys are playing hurling or football at two entirely different levels, each, in its own way, as important as the other. But every time they play one, the other is also at risk (this double jeopardy situation becomes double double jeopardy for the dual player). It's wrong.

Hurling and football should be administered separately anyway, I believe, so that any suspension picked up in one does not affect the other. That's the first point, and I think that should be crystal clear to anyone. They're two totally different and separate games, should be treated as such. Could anyone justify a guy receiving a soccer suspension being prevented from playing cricket or rugby for the same period? Daft. But, on another level, club and county suspensions should also be treated separately.

At the moment, when it comes to administration, we have 32 mini-republics in the GAA (well, perhaps some are a little less "mini" than others, but let's keep Cork out of this). Ostensibly, each has a common system of justice, but reality, as it always is, is different. There are cases, always have been cases, always will be cases, as long as this system exists, where a referee does not call it as he sees it in incidents involving local county stars.

In the vast majority of those cases, the referee, too, is local, is actually by extension an official of the county board, and the last thing he wants to do is jeopardise his own county's chances of success. Mind you, and credit to them for it, some are more conscientious than others, and that was the case in that Gaeltacht/Austin Stacks game. But it appears to have been a decision taken in haste, and on reflection, well, the usual. Repentance.

It shouldn't happen, of course. There should be clear separation of church and state, of club and county, in the administration of suspensions, both hurling and football. And each of those should also be separate. But as usual, the words "should" and the acronym "GAA" are absolutely incompatible.

On Roy Keane, I've been asked more than once recently: "What about your hero now?" First of all, as I've said on numerous occasions in this column, I had only one sport hero, Muhammad Ali, and that was because his greatness went far beyond sport. But I have always admired Roy Keane, felt he was treated disgracefully in Saipan, and still do.

The Haaland incident? I'd like to know how much of the extract we've seen was Keane, how much of it was Dunphy being sensationalist. Forget the "taken out of context" bulls**t, because nothing written around what we've read would justify it. Going out to bruise an opponent is one thing, especially if, as often happens, there's one owed. I've done that myself, and more than once. But deliberately going out to maim, even to risk crippling someone? Man, I would have no respect whatever, none, for that kind of player.

I would like to hear from Keane himself exactly what he had in mind going into that game, that tackle. I would like to hear that all he meant to do was shake up the guy, and this is one time also I would like to hear him say he's sorry, sorry it turned out to be so much worse, for a fellow pro. I'm not sitting by the phone, though.