Cody: Sideline dictat a ‘bad, bad rule’
Cody added that he has never heard as much negative commentary about the GAA coming from within the association itself.
Asked yesterday about the new rules limiting the number of personnel on the sideline at inter-county games, Cody said: “It is of course going to impact on us, something I would be massively disappointed with.
“What are we talking about here, that people are saying that we have to ‘clean up the sideline’? It’s not as if there have been massive problems in our association over the years. Where has it all gone wrong over the years?
“I’ve never heard such negative comment from within the association about the association. I don’t understand it. To say we’re going to clean up the sideline... from what? We (Kilkenny) probably have the smallest in number of people involved in any inter-county team as regards back room.
“We don’t have all sorts of statisticians — and I’m not knocking anyone’s set up at all — we don’t have a huge back-up service of people involved in the team. It’s pretty straightforward. (Selector) Martin Fogarty is an integral part of that and we’re being told that he is now banished to the stand. I don’t know for what.”
Regarding other officials on the sideline, Cody pointed out that Gaelic football teams don’t need hurley carriers, for instance.
“There are two hurley carriers now expected to run the pitch. Hurlers are going to need hurleys replaced in a game. Footballers don’t need hurleys replaced in a game. The same number of people are going to have to cater for a hurler in a hurling match as a footballer in a football match.
“Every one of those hurlers will have at least three spare hurleys because it can happen. Anyone who plays club hurling knows that. So you have to look after 45 hurleys, three 15s. The hurley carrier has to look after water for the players and that amount of hurleys as well on the sideline. And be expected to travel the pitch if a hurley gets broken 60 or 70 yards away.
“It’s going to cause much more messing, it’s a bad, bad rule and it doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not catering for hurling. It’s not catering for the players at all who need a hurley instantly replaced. It’s going to make it very difficult for the hurley carriers, water carriers.”
Cody pointed out that other sports have crowded sidelines also.
“We keeping reading about the Uachtarán saying he would prefer the rugby set-up and all the rest of it. Why? What’s wrong with the GAA set-up?
“We seem to forget that happens in rugby as well. If you watch a rugby match, as soon as there is a break in play, the whole place descends upon the field with drinks, all sorts of stuff coming through to the players, they stand up and talk to the players.
“It’s as if we have some sort of invaders coming into a hurling match. I don’t know why it’s all happening.
“And then our poor doctor is going to be gone from the sideline. Dr Tahdg Crowley is steeped in the GAA and now he is deemed unworthy to be on the sideline.”
Responding to comments from referees’ chief Pat McEneaney last year that eight red cards rather than two would have been an appropriate number for the 2012 hurling season, Cody said: “I didn’t realise he said that. We are being constantly asked not to criticise referees’ displays and we’re warned that if we do comment on referees’ displays, that we’re in trouble.
“If the referees’ chief, the relevant body, or whoever it is, says that referees didn’t do a good job. Are they now saying we should be saying the same things? I haven’t said anything about referees.
“Every participant in all of the games make mistakes, including myself and my players. I’m not talking about mistakes in transgression in rules, I’m talking about wishing they’d done things differently. I’m sure referees would hold their hands up and say they’ve made mistakes as well.
“The big cant before the All-Ireland final replay was that the drawn final was the first All-Ireland final that has been refereed properly for years. I couldn’t figure out that one — it was a terrible slur on the performances of the referees in All-Ireland finals from whenever they were talking about.”
Cody was speaking at the launch of Glanbia’s sponsorship of the Kilkenny hurlers, which has been extended to 2015.
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