Players hit with 36-week bans after Ulster brawl

THE Ulster Council has handed out stiff suspensions and imposed heavy fines on the clubs involved in a brawl at the end of an Ulster Club IFC game last month.

Four players, two each from Ballymacnab of Armagh and Tyrone’s Stewartstown, were handed 36-week bans.

And both clubs were fined €2,500 as a result of the post-match melee which marred their Ulster semi-final.

The game ended in a draw, and will be replayed now that the clubs have escaped dismissal from the competition. Stewartstown’s Anton Coyle and Tony Donnelly were suspended for 36 weeks, as were Ballymacnab’s Philip McCone and Dwayne McParland.

A total of 12 players, seven of them from Ballymacnab, were suspended.

Barry Bleeks of Stewartstown received a 24-week ban, with others receiving suspensions ranging from eight weeks to 12 weeks.

Stewartstown fined €2500; Anton Coyle, 36 weeks; Tony Donnelly, 36 weeks Barry Bleeks, 24 weeks; Ryan Small, eight weeks; Rory O’Neill, four weeks. Ballymacnab fined €2,500; Philip McCone, 36 weeks; Dwayne McParland, 36 weeks; Stephen Kennedy, 12 weeks; Christopher Kennedy, eight weeks; Paul Kennedy, eight weeks; Damien McGeown, eight weeks; Gary McKee, eight weeks.

Meanwhile South Kerry GAA chiefs have been left red-faced after a technicality allowed a player who allegedly struck a referee last month, escape suspension, and play in the weekend’s divisional senior semi-final.

On November 26, Michael Curran was attacked after the minor football league final between Waterville and Skellig Rangers, won dramatically by Waterville with a last-minute goal.

One Rangers supporter is believed to have kicked the official in the stomach in what one witness described as “like something out of a Kung Fu movie”.

However the individual allegedly involved escaped censure at a meeting last week due to an error on the part of board bosses.

He then lined out against Dromid Pearses, the home club of match official, Curran, in Sunday’s South Kerry SFC semi-final. The game was won by Skellig Rangers, who now face Waterville in Saturday’s decider.

The player at the centre of controversy is free to play as the board don’t plan to revisit the matter until after Christmas.

The chairman of the South Kerry Board, Patrick Brennan, admitted that the situation was unsatisfactory but said that “these things happen”.

Explained Brennan: “We met during the week but we discovered that our GPC meeting was unconstitutional as there should have been seven members present but we only had six.

“We rang the county board and they confirmed that we needed to have had six. It was a technicality. These things happen.”

However he revealed that the matter will not be discussed until after the Christmas break.