O’Sullivan accuses GAA chiefs of ‘ruining’ hurling
The Cloyne clubman railed against the first yellow card handed out to Dublin’s Ryan O’Dwyer on Sunday, maintaining the challenge wouldn’t even have merited a free in years gone by, much less a card.
O’Sullivan was also hugely critical of James Owens’ handling of the tie, particularly his decision not to send-off Liam Rushe for the reckless swing back on Patrick Horgan.
“They are cutting of their noses to spite their faces,” he said of hurling referees.
“They have been asked to implement the letter of the law. The law is that any frontal charge is a yellow card. Any strike with a hurley is a red card. If the GAA are trying to make hurling into a non-contact sport, if they are going to abide by the letter of the law you have to punish all offences.
“Without a doubt they are ruining the game. Ryan O’Dwyer’s first challenge was accepted three, four years ago. The fella got up, it might have been a free, it might not. There was a similar instance in the second-half. Pa Cronin was shoulder charged into his chest, the ball fell out of his hand, he went after it and the referee gave the free to the Dublin guy for what reason nobody knows.”
The three-times All-Ireland medal winner stressed the importance of eliminating the inconsistency of hurling referees, which has come to dominate the summer championship.
“If he hadn’t sent Ryan off, I have no doubt Liam Rushe would have gone seven or eight minutes later. One balances the other out. There is huge inconsistency there.”
Like the Munster final and Cork’s quarter-final win over Kilkenny, Sunday’s game was overshadowed by a controversial sending-off. O’Sullivan, however, believed the Rebels would still have eked out the win even if Anthony Daly’s side hadn’t been reduced to 14 men.
“Dublin had their purple match in the first 15 minutes of the second-half. Cork had soaked up the pressure. They really had come thundering back into the game.
“I felt it was a critical period within the game, but Cork had absorbed the pressure.
“Regardless of the red card I still feel Cork would have had enough to go on and win the game.”
Indeed, the Cork legend claimed the game’s crucial moment arrived a quarter of an hour after O’Dwyer’s dismissal.
“You can’t coach that,” he said of Patrick Horgan’s deft flick in dispossessing Gary Maguire for Cork’s goal.
“To have the cuteness and wherewithal to compose himself, to know that this goalkeeper is going to pick the ball up, he rushed the goalkeeper, waited for the ball to pop-up and then made the crucial connection. It was a touch of genius.
“A good All-Ireland final basically gets Hoggy hurler of the year, that is the way I’d been looking at it,” he added.
Having hurled under Jimmy Barry-Murphy, O’Sullivan is well aware of the manager’s Midas-touch and asserted he has been vindicated in shipping on the older brigade, Niall McCarthy, John Gardiner, Donal O’Cusack and Seán Óg Ó hAilpín.
“There was a lot of debate about whether Jimmy did the right thing in moving on a lot of the older guys. They would have been seen as big-game players in Cork. I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating now. He did the same in 98/99 when he cut a couple of the older guys.
“He has invested heavily in youth and he has managed to get the best out of them.
“There is a confidence growing in the group and it is something to admire and like.”
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