O’Mahony should not be made a scapegoat

NOT FOR the first time this year, I find myself defending a Kerry footballer, but here goes anyway.

Earlier in the year the big demon was Paul Galvin, who, according to all the self righteous pulpiteers, should have accepted his six-month suspension for knocking the notebook from the referee’s hands and should not have gone through the GAA appeals process.

On the basis that Galvin’s suspension was excessive — twice what he should have been given — on the basis also that he was fully entitled to use the appeals process (what the hell is it there for otherwise?), I disagreed.

Eventually, and properly, Paul won his appeal, was then given the three months he should have got in the first place, and there wasn’t another murmur from either Galvin himself or from Kerry.

Now, the demon is Aidan O’Mahony. After Sunday’s drawn All-Ireland senior football semi-final against Cork in Croke Park (and how in heaven’s name did that happen?), Aidan was fairly taken apart by the two RTÉ analysts, Joe Brolly and Colm O’Rourke, for his theatrical delayed-reaction fall to the floor, having received what was no more than a dismissive open-hand pat on the cheek from Cork forward Donncha O’Connor after the two players were involved in a little head-to-head.

I don’t dispute Brolly and O’Rourke right to criticise, I don’t even dispute their criticism; in the same way that I didn’t condone what Paul Galvin did. And I absolutely do not condone Aidan’s theatrics. What I do question, however, is this – why has it taken so long? Why did Joe and Colm, and the more watery analysts later in the evening, wait until a Munster player, and more specifically, a Kerry player, was involved, before finally highlighting this growing blight in gaelic football? Yes, there have been a few mini furores in the past, but the O’Mahony incident was leaped on, with vigour. Why so long? Aidan O’Mahony isn’t the first gaelic footballer to hit the deck in exaggerated fashion after the merest hint of contact with an opponent. This kind of behaviour is endemic now in the GAA, at every level, and it’s becoming a key part of both gaelic football and hurling. Yes, hurling too, and we’ve all seen it. RTÉ could put together a whole package of such lowlights, and perhaps it’s time they did.

The reason, above all others, that I turned away from soccer was the diving, the rolling around the ground, the exaggerated reactions to physical contact, the outright dishonesty. I wouldn’t claim to have been the hardest man ever to play hurling but by God I wouldn’t go down easy, nor would I have any sympathy for anyone, teammate or opponent, who did. Going down to win a free yes, where foul contact was made, but going down to get another player sent off – no way. To me that’s no different to using the ‘leather wedge’ in golf, booting your ball out of trouble – it’s cheating, pure cheating.

But it’s here, in the GAA, and it’s increasing. The reason? Same reason we now have the social morons in society generally – it was tolerated in the beginning, and that tolerance has been maintained.

THE FIRST thing that should happen here is that Donncha O’Connor’s red card should be rescinded. If what he did was a red card striking offence, then every dig and jab in hurling, every elbow in the ribs in football, is even more compellingly so. A yellow card at worst, that’s what Donncha deserved, and any suggestion otherwise is to partially condone O’Mahony’s reaction in going down. It was merely a tap.

The second thing that should happen is that all future ‘divers’ should be put on red alert, literally; any future such incident will be dealt with by straight red card, either on the spot if the referee catches it himself, or retrospectively, if it’s caught on camera. I don’t agree at all with the talk of making an example of O’Mahony, of using the ‘bringing the game into disrepute’ ruling, in the same way I didn’t agree with the example made of Paul Galvin. Making an example of anyone isn’t justice, not even related to justice. Why should O’Mahony be the first to be punished for an offence that is now so commonplace? But, put everyone on alert now – no more tolerance, because this kind of activity is bringing the game into disrepute, bringing the association into disrepute.

I have argued with supporters of other sports about the manliness of GAA players, the honesty in gaelic football, in hurling, how big belts are given and taken with equal equanimity. Wouldn’t it be the supreme irony that at a time when soccer is beginning to get its act together in dealing with that kind of cheating, the GAA were to let it flow and grow?