Cooney reluctant to fence supporters in

GAA president Christy Cooney has reaffirmed the Association’s reluctance to introduce fencing in a bid to prevent incidents like those witnessed in Portlaoise on Sunday when fans entered the pitch and contributed to a melee.

The GAA has managed to combat the invasion of spectators onto the Croke Park pitch after big games with the installation of a perspex fence on Hill 16 but Cooney is not an advocate of repeating that in the county grounds.

“You know our views on that,” he stated. “We don’t necessarily want to hem people in. We’ve put on a pilot (scheme) in Croke Park over the last two years and it worked extremely well. There was nobody coming in from the stands in any of our games. We want that (attitude) to operate in every county ground and every club ground and for people to respect the players in particular because by coming onto the pitch, they are causing problems for players.

“We don’t want that. It’s an education process and I think we’ve gone some bit in moving that on through what we’ve done in Croke Park. People recognise — and I think it became very apparent after the All-Ireland football final — it was the right thing to do.”

Cooney said he had not seen footage of the Portlaoise incidents but he expressed hope that both clubs would offer full cooperation. Whether existing GAA rules and regulations — and the appetite to wield them to the full — are sufficient to act as a deterrent to such transgressors is a matter for debate but Cooney stressed that “there is only so much” that Croke Park can do.

“You know what happened in the (Louth/Meath Leinster final in 2010),” he explained. “There were people that came onto the field and certain matters were taken up by the gardaí and went through due process.

“There were issues in Antrim last year and the Antrim County Board dealt with that very strongly. There were issues in Tyrone and the Tyrone County Board dealt with that very strongly. I’m sure there were a lot of people in Portlaoise had no involvement in the situation and went there for the purpose of supporting their team and enjoying the game. People who have misbehaved have to be dealt with and the Central Competitions Control Committee will do that.”