One man’s cheat is another man’s chance
Condoning the behaviour of Lee Keegan before and the Dublin forwards after Dean Rock’s winning free in the All-Ireland was nevertheless striking.
“I could understand Lee Keegan’s frustration (throwing the GPS unit at Dean Rock),” he said. “He knew it. They knew it that the game was up — unless they won the next kick-out — and then the Dubs made sure they weren’t going to win the next kick-out. Fair play to Dublin for what they did. They manhandled their players, kicked away the thing. I would have no issue with players doing that once you win the game.”
Once you win the game. That’s the difference. Sheehy may have been planting a seed but at face value here was one of the silkiest and cleanest footballers to have laced a pair of boots backing a means that went beyond the rules or even gamesmanship.
Then again, this was the man who sent Paddy Cullen flailing back for a burning cake, as Con Houlihan so succinctly put it. His was a moment that typified opportunism in Gaelic games.
What’s acceptable now, though, is an awful lot more than a forward stealing a march on a goalkeeper. Keegan’s act is now a laughing matter. Dublin’s Philly McMahon defended the action, saying he would have thrown his jersey at Rock to put him off. Journalists reacted to that answer with smiles but his following thoughts on it being human nature to bend the rules drew a more sombre response.
He said: “I’ve got to the stage in life where I’m playing for Dublin and ultimately the effect of that is going to help people in my charity, especially if I win it. So, I am going to do what I can to win. Now, if it affects the team negatively and the result negatively, then it’s the wrong decision. But that’s what you’re planning to do. There’s always the opportunity to be negative. And that’s why the lads probably did it in the last 10 minutes, because they saw the opportunity in something negative they were doing.”
On one of the busiest sport weekends of the year, there were obviously going to be flashpoints where the definition of cheating was going to come up in conversation. There was Dele Alli’s dive and the penalty decisions in Anfield on Sunday (although there was enough smoke to award both) and the day before that in Paris France’s questionable use of a Head Injury Assessment on Antoine Dupont, which prompted Brian O’Driscoll to describe it as “pretty disgraceful”.
After doing something similar against Wales last year and getting away with it, France have form on this count so the onus to punish them has obviously increased. Was it so removed from Leicester’s Bloodgate controversy against Leinster in 2009? Is it all that different from how the blood substitution loophole is exploited by Gaelic football managers time after time after time? In that regard, the fault largely in the main with the GAA but there is little doubt what has been done by managers contravenes the spirit of the rule.
This past weekend, the rise in sendings off across the Allianz Football League continued although the number of black cards remained relatively low. In Division 1, there were three black cards brandished, two of them after the hour mark. In the previous weekend’s round one, there were two in the top flight, one of them in the 59th minute.
Managers are on record stating they don’t use their sixth and final substitute until the closing stages so as to ensure they can replace a black carded player. It makes perfect sense but then it also illustrates the likelihood of a footballer taking one for the team when the game is to be decided.
GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s recent comments that “the relevance and adequacy” of the automatic substitution rule would benefit from a review “in the closing stages of a game when the purpose of the foul is to prevent a score being taken” are welcome although any change to it will be somebody else’s baby and his successor may not share the same view.
Something, though, will have to be done. The GAA might not like to believe it but the GAA has an increasingly casual approach to cheating and that includes the use of euphemisms like bending the rules and doing what it takes to win.
Cynicism can be distinguished from it but the line is a particularly fine when it is systematic and endemic.
Turning black to red after the hour mark may be an option but empowering referees with a video assistant, adding a second referee or both would be considerably more pro-active.
Player welfare must be the priority
Steve Coogan’s character Paul Calf has little in common with most inter-county managers. Unlike the foul-mouthed, mullet-headed lager lout, the men who occupy the sideline don’t f***ing hates students. If anything, they love them.
Trouble is, their university managers do too. After using David Clifford for 60 minutes last Tuesday week following Éamonn Fitzmaurice using him for 49 minutes the previous Sunday, Tralee IT manager Liam Brosnan called for the Fossa star to be given a break. “The likes of David could be left off the county team for a couple of weeks to be let go and play Sigerson football and enjoy it.”
In what was his fourth game in 10 days, Fitzmaurice started him again on Saturday only for Clifford to limp off after 17 minutes. If, as expected, Brosnan can’t call on his main man against DIT this evening, his post-match comments might just be as entertaining as the game.
On Sunday, Cork manager Ronan McCarthy admitted the management should have taken off Killian O’Hanlon prior to him picking up a leg injury. “He played Sigerson on Tuesday and he played 50 minutes there today. In hindsight, we probably should have taken him off earlier with regards to the fact he played earlier in the week.”
The weekend previous, McCarthy had lost Seán Powter who had also been toggling between county and college commitments.
In these situations, county managers will be seen as the big, bad wolf but when are the likes of Fitzmaurice and McCarthy going to have the opportunity to gauge their young players? Powter, as electric as he was in last year’s championship, has yet to get a full league campaign under his belt and now won’t until at least 2019.
Derek McGrath’s idea that the students be made available exclusively to their colleges for the duration of their championships is a sound one but for the welfare of these young players they can’t overlap with the leagues.
Stop the vox pops
The likes of Arsenal TV have shown that there’s a market for post-match vox pops even if a lot of the time the material is hilarious and preposterous, even if the targets of their ire are paid so handsomely for their trouble.
eir Sport, though, may want to think again about picking the brains of GAA supporters, particularly after their team has lost.
That they allowed the ridiculously harsh comments of one Waterford fan about captain Kevin Moran following Saturday’s defeat to Tipperary in Thurles to be broadcasted was a low moment.
Moran was a hurler of the year candidate last year and but for what could be considered a career acknowledgment of Joe Canning would have ran his midfield partner Jamie Barron close for the main award. Yet here he was being pilloried for what was rustiness in the first week of February.
Memories are short not only in Waterford but the individual’s cameo gave an insight into the myopia that exists about a team and management who clearly have their sights set on peaking for the summer and are using the league to further develop their squad when the changes to the championship compel an expansion of resources.
After a third loss in as many weeks, it could be suggested Kilkenny supporters have more reasons to query the direction of their team but then their understanding of their team is much deeper.
- Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
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