Tyrone midfield ace Cavanagh insists he would never cheat to win a free

Sean Cavanagh has intimated Joe Brolly’s criticism of him has become personal after the outspoken pundit claimed on Sunday he cheated to engineer a black card for Darren Hughes as well as a free.

Brolly suggested the Tyrone star had pulled down Hughes to hoodwink referee Eddie Kinsella into awarding him a free and punishing Hughes with an automatic substitution, which duly happened.

The 1993 Derry All-Ireland winner was scathing of Cavanagh in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final when he hauled down Conor McManus as the Monaghan forward looked set to strike for goal. Insisting he would never cheat to win a free, when asked if Brolly was getting too close to the bone, Cavanagh replied: “Possibly. He’s not someone that I would know very much.”

The Moy man claimed he held Hughes’ arm in the Ulster quarter-final in Clones as a “protection mechanism” in case he was struck in the tackle by Hughes’ elbow. He also admitted he wasn’t aware Hughes had been black carded for the incident.

“Obviously I’ve been here before and I’m beginning to feel a little bit like Mario Balotelli!” smiled Cavanagh wryly about the perceived persecution before adding, “On Sunday, whenever you slow these tackles down to a millisecond or whatever it is, you can read assumptions into it. The way I felt at the time was that Darren came in hard and no matter what the outcome was going to be, it was going to be a free to us in the first place.

“Possibly, I know he had maybe his left arm around me on the other side so okay, I was maybe holding his arm. I would never try to cheat to win a free in my life, it’s more that whenever someone is coming at you at speed and you’re falling, it’s like a protection mechanism. It gives you a loose elbow or whatever you get when you’re falling.

“These things happen so quickly it’s very hard to put your finger on why it happened in any position, but to read an assumption I was trying to cheat? It’s really disappointing because I don’t see myself as that type of player and I wouldn’t like to be seen as that type of player. It goes back to last year again, it doesn’t worry me all that much, it doesn’t, it genuinely doesn’t.”

However, it does impact on those closest to Cavanagh.

“Yet again, it’s my family, my friends, my wife. Like, my wife is a local GP, she’s coming home to me and saying, ‘oh, people from all cross sections of the community are complaining, are talking about you today again’. And you’re just going, ‘right...’ It’s disappointing from that point of view because it does affect you.”

Cavanagh says it’s only right players in possession who pull down an opponent with them should be black carded as is the rule.

However, he wonders if GAA pundits are predisposed with focusing on the negative aspects of Gaelic games.

“I don’t know whether it’s part of the Irish media, whether they’re sometimes happy to go with the negative things than the positive things. That’s where sometimes the likes of Sky Sports coming in will maybe look at some of the more positive aspects of things.

“I was watching, like, I don’t get to watch an awful lot but I was watching the Sunday Game on Sunday night and at the time I was just thinking, ‘I’d hate to be a footballer from Clare’. They’d had a great win over Waterford and they’re playing Kerry this weekend and they probably mentioned them for five seconds and they spent a few minutes on Tyrone and myself and whatever else. It just seemed a wee bit unfair that they were spending more time on the negative things.

“There are players that will try and so-called cheat during games. Like, even on Sunday, and it happens all the time, there will be players where when you’re running across them, they will throw themselves to ground. Usually what happens is the referee will say, ‘get up, you’re alright’ and move on. To me, those guys are trying to intentionally get someone black carded or do something like that. And those are the bigger issues that may come to light out of some of these challenges that are being highlighted.”

Conor Clarke’s antics behind Niall Morgan’s goal on Sunday, especially as Kieran Hughes struck his penalty, have compelled the GAA to introduce neutral ballboys from now on. Cavanagh said: “We’re giving Conor a fair bit of abuse on Monday about it. He was there to throw the balls quick enough to Niall so he could get the quick kickouts taken, but I think maybe it will be the last time he’s a ballboy this year by the looks of it. Or possibly we could put him in goals with Niall because that seemed to work pretty well with the penalty!”