Brennan blasts ‘horrible attitude’ towards disciplinary codes

THE “horrible attitude” of GAA people challenging disciplinary decisions to the absolute limit was strongly criticised by GAA President Nickey Brennan yesterday, saying he had no doubt that any players sent off this weekend or next weekend would follow the same route as the Kerry captain Paul Galvin.

Brennan’s particular complaint was that the psyche within the Association was “not to accept that something was wrong, not to accept your punishment and go to the nth degree to get off”.

Interviewed by Paul Collins on Today FM’s ‘The GAA Show’, he stated: “People don’t accept punishment any more. They don’t accept that they do wrong. People are always coming up with excuses and it is simply not acceptable. I travel the length and breadth of the country and I am listening to parents and they are complimenting us on the manner in which we are dealing with discipline.

“But they are also saying if we don’t continue, there are many kids who will not stay playing Gaelic Games because we have that horrible attitude that it’s all right to have rules for other people but that when something happens to ‘our team’ we have to try our might to get people off.”

Saying that he admired Waterford hurler John Mullane for accepting his punishment when he was suspended a few years ago, Brennan said his particular case was often quoted because of the high profile he enjoyed. However, it was a fact that many other players around the country responded in similar fashion “by accepting that they had done wrong”.

Emphasising that he wasn’t prepared to go into any detail on the Paul Galvin case, he said it was “nonsense” for people to say that the GAA were responsible for dragging it out.

“It wasn’t dragged out, from a GAA perspective. The DRA, which is a body outside of the Association, took a particular view on the matter and decreed that a certain course of action would be taken. I think the GAA dealt with the matter as quickly as possible in the circumstances. I am glad it has come to an end. I too may have more to say on it in due course,” he commented.

“I don’t want to get into any particular case other than to say that from an overall discipline perspective — and I’m not referring to any individual here — I would say that certainly there is a far more challenge to our disciplinary system.

“The process is very much working. The problem is that a few cases that maybe get high profile tend to give the system a bad name.

“I said in the past that, perhaps, we could have less strands in the system. There are those who advocate an AFL approach to this, having a Commission sitting down on a Monday morning. But I would pose the question, if we had that tomorrow, would it stop people going to the High Court to get an interlocutory injunction? Of course it won’t.”

Brennan expects that rugby and soccer will no longer be played in Croke Park after the spring of 2010, explaining: “I understand that the Lansdowne Road development is on track and everything is working out fine there. So, I would say after 2010, Rule 42 will simply revert back.”