Duffy: It’s time to cut out the trash talking

GAA Director General Páraic Duffy has expressed annoyance over the increase in “trash talking” in inter-county games.

The Monaghan native revealed he spoke to GPA chief executive Dessie Farrell on Friday about instructing members to cut out sledging after incidents like those reported in Portlaoise when Armagh and Laois clashed last Sunday week. He also said what happened in O’Moore Park between Ciaran McKeever and a Laois player was trash talking not racism or sectarianism.

“The players are the people that should have the lead here,” Duffy told Setanta’s iTalkSport yesterday. “This is something that should be stopped and can be stopped quite quickly. A couple of years ago when we had an issue around players feigning injury, we went to the GPA and said, ‘look, we think you need to talk to the players about this’. In fact, that was quite effective. What we’d like to see now is the GPA taking the lead and saying to members in all 32 counties that this kind of stuff needs to stop and there’s no place for it.”