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Showing Your True Colours

I

Henry Shefflin’s face is no more worthy of protection than that of any other player in the Association. Special Junior B mullocker to serial All-Star, all are important. All are equal before the rules and before a code of honour no less powerful for being unwritten. That said, no-one should be under any illusions about how near the Kilkenny forward came to losing an eye in the replay against Clare. The injury he did receive needn’t, in and of itself, be a matter for condemnation. The same can be said of the far more grave injury he narrowly avoided. Jimmy Finn, Tom Walsh and Pat Hartigan, amongst other intercounty players, had to retire after suffering eye injuries that came as a result of an accident on the field of play. More recently, Tullaroan’s John Coogan had his club career finished when he suffered damage to an eye last summer. Like most sports, hurling has an element of risk attached to it. More than most sportsmen, though, hurlers need to exercise great care due to their use of a camán.

II

The incident on July 31th last cannot credibly be compared to the four tragic incidents mentioned above. The manner by which the Ballyhale man suffered harm was disgraceful. Discussed in some detail in the seventh instalment of this column, the clash nevertheless demands more discussion due to the gravity of the issues involved and the untenable comment on it that issued from some quarters. The devil is in the detail, let it be remembered -- as will again be evident. Shefflin’s pragmatism -- his willingness to accept an apology from Gerry Quinn in highly dubious circumstances -- received its deserved reward. The three-time All-Star will play on Sunday in his fifth Senior All-Ireland Final, seeking a fourth Celtic Cross. Quinn will probably be watching in some bar or other. What becomes of one Corofin player’s career is, in the heel of the hunt, a matter of little interest to Kilkenny followers.

The issue does not, however, end there. It does not terminate with Noreside disdain for utter recklessness as regards career-ending injuries. Kilkenny supporters are not just Kilkenny supporters. They are also GAA people and hurling people. + is no different. The GAC’s decision was of great interest to them in this regard -- and a very great disappointment, in far more than local contexts. The disciplinary body erred very seriously in saying that the Clare half-back had no case to answer.

III

Why? The seventh ‘Stubborn Nore’ limned the key point as regards footage of the incident. Take what perspective you like but one aspect cannot be gainsaid. Gerry Quinn had both of his hands on his hurl. It is hard to understand why no-one else except The Rattler picked up on this point. Many of the commentators in the media are ex-intercounty players. They should have every appreciation of the facet’s significance. That Peter Finnerty, previously a distinguished intercounty wing-back, saw nothing wrong with the challenge was nothing short of incredible. Nor did Finnerty as an out-and-out columnist, not being dependent on staying in good favour with various intercounty squads so as to harvest interviews and quotations in the coming seasons, have to bite his tongue -- as seemed to be the case with some commentators (Denis Walsh in The Sunday Times being a notable and an honourable exception). Anyone who has played hurling at any level -- unless they are totally blinded by bias -- will understand the implications of this issue.

Doubt the assertion? Close your eyes. Go with your mind’s eye. Imagine yourself with two hands on the hurl in left hand-on-top fashion. Imagine running the hurl sideways to your left, with some vigour, with two hands still on it. Now try the same mental process when you have your left hand solely on the hurl. Your right hand is in the air, awaiting proximity of the sliothar. Now let the hurl run sideways to your left.

What emerges from this process? One very clear thing, say what you like. To quote the relevant passage in the previous column: “The most salient aspect of the encounter? This one: that the defender had both hands on his hurl when -- and twice, mind -- he struck out at his opponent’s facial area with the butt of his stick. If the Corofin wing-back’s left hand had been the sole one gripping the camán, then a certain argument could be made. If that arrangement had been the case, it could be argued that Quinn was merely reckless in the manner he attempted to balance himself while attempting a high ball. Players sometimes swing back, in such a position, so as to recalibrate their body weight.//No such contention is, in this instance, credible. Both of his hands were on the hurl at the time those cowardly blows were made. Ergo: the cameo wasn’t about jostling under a high ball. It was about a desire, momentary or otherwise, to visit damage on Henry Shefflin’s face.” Such requotation is warranted because the only way Quinn’s culpability in the matter can be assessed is through analysis of a technical nature. Such analysis has been sorely lacking in both the national media and the GAA’s disciplinary arm, as well as in some acrid online discussion.

Still doubt the significance of both hands being on the hurl? One way of underlining its import is to read the interview given by Gerry Quinn after the game to The Clare Champion (August 6, 2004). As recorded by Gerry McInerney and Seamus Hayes, Quinn sketches a picture of an orthodox and colloquial challenge that went wrong: “I did not deliberately strike Henry Shefflin. We were tussling for possession under a dropping ball. I grabbed the ball and raced forward before striking the ball towards goal.” There are a number of unsatisfactory emphases in this account. Carefully read, it offers a very sketchy picture. The defender patently seeks to imply that both men were seeking to win the sliothar, their fetching hands outstretched, their shoulders and upper bodies struggling for advantage. As it happens, Quinn errs in saying that he gathered the ball at first attempt and broke away up the field. What actually happened is that the ball fell to the ground before he managed to control it. Small matter, really -- although it does indicate how inexact, tellingly or otherwise, Quinn’s recall of the moment quickly became. Of rather more weight is how the wing-back strives to imply that he had only one hand on the hurl. He plainly realizes, at some level, the nature of the inference to be made about intent if his two hands were gripping the stick.

Another inference, in fact, can be made about Quinn’s initial response: that he thought Shefflin had done his hamstring. The comment was not just risible: its blustering tone is easily taken as the acoustic of someone with something to hide. While + did not do a degree in Medicine at UCD, he could confidently state that sportsmen who have just ripped a hamstring do not tend to bleed in the eye area. He would also imagine such an observation is not beyond Gerry Quinn, whatever he studied at UL. The serious question remains: why invent patent nonsense if you are not seeking an alibi?

The footage likewise demonstrates another heinous aspect to the blows. The Banner back clearly goes to strike with the handle of his hurl a second time even though Shefflin, at this point, is stumbling backwards. Again, this simple point, discernible to anyone with the eyes to look, is very significant. The Kilkenny forward was struck twice through his faceguard even though, on the two occasions, he was in a different posture: standing erect the first time, falling backwards the second time. Is there any way of reading this facet other than to hold that there was a consistency in the area targeted? It certainly indicates consistency as regards total recklessness about the likely effect of his digs. Equally, it has been said that the fact Quinn wasn’t looking directly at Shefflin is a mitigating factor -- is a factor that even clears the Corofin man of any malicious intent. It would be hard to turn up more unintelligent comment. That Quinn wasn’t looking at Shefflin makes the offence even worse, since it meant he had even less control over where his hurl would strike. And make no mistake: Gerry Quinn meant to strike, as even the most rudimentary technical analysis demonstrates.

IV

One particular category -- ‘intent’ -- has therefore occasioned much debate. Unfortunately, these deliberations have brought forth scarce little intelligence or coherence. ‘Sideline Cuts’ in the Sunday Tribune (August 22, 2004) offered this perspective: “This column can’t understand the mystification that’s been expressed in some quarters over the outcome of the Gerry Quinn/Henry Shefflin affair. Of course Quinn got off.//Pat Horan didn’t see fit to mention the incident in his report, a situation that didn’t change when the GAC sought further clarification. Barry Kelly, the nearest linesman, spotted nothing untoward. Proving intent on Quinn’s part was clearly impossible. Therefore the Clare player was always going to receive the benefit of the doubt.” This contribution is shrewd, in its understated way, about the ‘politics’ of discipline within the GAA. But it is naïve, for whatever reason, about the issue of proof. As outlined here, there was a way of assessing intent on the basis of certain technical aspects. If the techniques used in hurling are not relevant to disciplinary matters, then we really have arrived in a world authored by Lewis Carroll.

Writing in the Irish Examiner (August7, 2004), Eamonn Sweeney made even more of a hames of the issue: “Gerry Quinn was careless”, Sweeney allowed, “but it’s unlikely he meant to damage Henry Shefflin’s eye.” Sweeney has lately rebranded himself as a ‘GAA fanatic’ (as the subtitle as his latest tome has it). This characterization will have startled readers of his earlier sports memoir, There’s Only One Red Army (1997) -- an incongruity that will form the basis of a future ‘Stubborn Nore’. Yet even Sweeney, who appears to know exceptionally little about hurling beyond what he can glean from record books, should be able to rise above this nonsense. The issue is one of ‘kind’ (using the hurl in the general facial area), not one of ‘degree’ (using the hurl to target an eye). It simply baffles + how so many observers cannot make this most fundamental of distinctions. To repose the question: would it have been (more) acceptable if Quinn merely had been seeking to break Shefflin’s nose?

The reductio ad absurdum of this approach landed in Martin Storey’s column for Ireland On Sunday (August 8, 2004). Storey was a fine hurler and is, by all accounts, a very decent man. But his take on the incident is nothing short of bizarre in its self-contradictions: “It is my opinion that Gerry Quinn intended to hit him but not to cause any damage.//The last thing the Clareman wanted to do was to put Shefflin in his hospital with an eye injury so serious that it required surgery.//At the same time, it’s clear to me that he wanted to give him a clatter, a physical reminder to try and intimidate his marker even though it didn’t work the way he planned.” Where to begin? We are asked to believe that someone can wish to strike another individual without wishing to cause him any hurt. Maybe so, maybe so. But that concession cannot be the end of the story. If hurt, of whatever seriousness, results from the stroke, then blame, the key evaluation, obviously lies with the perpetrator.

The Wexford man’s vocabulary is similarly tangled. A ‘clatter’, in usual GAA parlance, denotes a shoulder or a heavy physical challenge made on the borderline between legality and illegality. Digging at a fellow hurler’s face with the butt of a hurl is very far from the vast majority of people’s understanding of a clatter. What Quinn intended (“planned”) was to have a go with the handle of his hurl in or about Henry Shefflin’s faceguard. If you someone use his stick in such a fashion about 5’8” off the ground, there is no other sensible conclusion. What results from that plan is Quinn’s responsibility. What else is there to say? Storey does, it should be noted, grope towards the reality of the situation -- though only to push the recognition away again: “he hurt his case when he insisted that he thought Shefflin had pulled his hamstring when he first saw him writhing on the ground in pain.//How a player could have looked to have injured his leg with blood spilling from his head after jostling for a dropping ball is beyond me.” It is beyond nobody if you recognize the alibi factor.

V

Gerry Quinn’s actions in Semple Stadium on July 31st should be repugnant to all right-thinking and genuine followers of hurling. To use the handle of his hurl in such a fashion is nearly the worst thing a hurler can do on the pitch. About the only action more heinous would be to approach an opponent and deliberately jab the handle into his face. Again, the analogy that was used in the previous ‘Stubborn Nore’ -- and in a couple of other quarters -- holds. There is as little point in claiming that Quinn did not intend to harm Henry Shefflin’s eyes as there would be in arguing that an intoxicated driver who knocks down and fatally injures a pedestrian did not intend to kill that person. Perhaps not. But that’s not the point. The driver, by sitting behind the wheel of a car with so much alcohol taken, must take responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions. ‘Responsibilty’ is the key concept on this occasion, not ‘intent’. If you dig with the butt of your hurl in an opponent’s facial area, then you are responsible for any injury that befalls him. How simpler can it be articulated? Not having precisely intended to blind him in one eye is neither here nor there.

Likewise, Quinn must take responsibility for jabbing backwards with the handle of his hurl. As already noted, it is far from good enough to say that he was looking the other way. If anything, that factor makes the offence still worse, since it gave him even less control over the handle’s penetration into the faceguard. Besides, the force laid behind the two jabs -- sufficient to shatter a bar in Shefflin’s faceguard, remember -- speaks for itself. Where is the scenario in which such activity comes under common-or-garden ‘jostling’ under a high ball? This is a guy who also planted Martin Comerford into the neck -- an action that could have killed the O’Loughlin Gaels man by shattering his windpipe.

To hive off all disciplinary matters under the rubric of ‘intent’ does not, in any event, cohere. Strictly defined, who ever intends to commit a foul except in certain determinate situations? Did Michael Walsh intend to catch the sliothar up three times in the semi-final, thereby giving away a crucial free at a crucial juncture? Intentional fouls mainly arise when a player sees it is the least worst option: fouling too far out the field for the resultant free to be converted, pulling down a man through on goal and so on. The obsession with the category of ‘intent’ betrays an unwillingness to think intently about the category’s place in the rulebook.

VI

Such moments tend to see people show their true colours. + is very proud of his native parish, his native county and his native country. He admires and respects anybody fond of their origins, from wherever they hail. But there is a time for narrow pride and there is a time to be absolutely clear-eyed. But some things on a hurler’s parts are just plain wrong. Some things on the part of those involved in hurling’s administration are, on occasion, equally wrong in another fashion. Decency must prevail. It is gave + no pleasure to say it at the time but Pat Dunphy was totally out of order last winter with those notorious remarks he made about Brendan Cummins in his official report for 2003 to the Kilkenny Co. Board. Nor you would have to be from Templemore or from Co. Tipperary to know that Eamonn Corcoran’s three-month suspension last year was a scandal (one that exercised the GPA curiously little).

Even though he drew down, ultimately, only a threat of legal action on RTE and on himself, Tomas Mulcahy is to be thanked not just by Kilkenny folk but by all lovers of hurling for the manner in which he sought to draw attention to the incident. Doing so may have saved another player, down the line, from losing an eye. Noted for being a sporting player himself during his career, Mulcahy’s perspective is all the more credible due to his neutrality in the matter -- a trait emphasized by his own native county still being in the championship. It did not surprise + to see, in an online context, that Aragorn, Colombia, Galtee Mountain Boy, Gunther, Home of Hurling, Hud, Mulcair, Ormonde Boy and Ryan all deplore any attempt to mitigate Quinn’s carry-on. None of these men are from Kilkenny, either. If + found himself to be of the opposite opinion to one held by these gentlemen, he would nearly immediately switch sides, so chary would he be of disagreeing with them as a collective. He has never found them to be on the wrong side of a hurling argument where principle is involved.

A pity a few more couldn’t learn from their fairmindedness and lack of bias. The particular problem, in whatever forum, with Banner supporters who refused to see that Quinn had done anything wrong was that they couldn’t be dismissed as unrepresentative, so perfectly in tune were they with the Clare Co. Board’s official position. A piece by Peter O’Connell in The Clare Champion (August 6, 2004) -- ironically titled ‘Board Chairman Lashes Out’ – quoted Michael McDonagh as saying that said Co. Board would defend Gerry Quinn “to the bitter end”. Ger Loughnane’s criticism of the Corofin defender, especially in this context deserves great credit. Ironically, though, it is Loughnane’s protege, Anthony Daly, who was responsible for sending out a side given to tactics which saw the Kilkenny management refuse to visit the losers’ dressing-room. +’s earlier comments on this topic occasioned great ire in certain quarters. It saddened to record such information about a hurling culture and a county for which he has such affection. If he had subsequently learned the information was even partially incorrect or overblown, he would have issued an apology in this column. No such retraction, partial or otherwise, is necessary -- quite the opposite, in fact. And that is the last + is saying on this sorry matter. For all some individuals’ acridity on the subject, not one of them has been prepared to account in other terms for Kilkenny’s no-show.

There was related saffron and blue-bound myopia in the refusal to deal with the specifics of Quinn’s manoeuvre. Despite repeated invitation to do so, these individuals never acknowledged this factor. Do they know anything about hurling at all? Instead, they fell back repeatedly on the specious mantra about ‘intent’ and the fact that the half-back wasn’t looking at the half-forward when he struck the blows. The relevance of these two issues have been demolished.

There was also an attempt to adopt a particular metaphor. Seemingly, there was some class of a scales in operation. Seemingly, what Gerry Quinn did was somehow lessened, on this view, by the alleged behaviour of the Kilkenny full-back line – and of Noel Hickey, in particular. Initially tilted high up in the air by the gravity of the offence, the Corofin wing-back’s activity was brought back to a more horizontal pitch by adding supposed black-and-amber antics to the other side of the scales. Noel Hickey’s conduct on the hurling field may not always stay within the rules. + has never had any problem acknowledging that facet of his play. He is, however, if a comparative register is your thing, hardly any worse than Brian Lohan for utilizing the darker aspects of defensive play. + is a great admirer of Lohan as a hurler and wishes to say no more other than to note the inconsistency. The notion that the Dunnamaggin full-back’s behaviour in any way approximated to Quinn’s actions is ridiculous. Why, if nothing else, was said passage not subject to the same scrutiny on The Sunday Game? Also, even if Hickey’s hurl connected with a Banner faceguard, there was no possibility of it entering the faceguard, it being the bás of the hurl that was in question. As explored below, this point is a very important one.

No-one has higher ‘regard’ for Kilkenny hurling than those most prejudiced against it. No-one thinks more about it, is more obsessed with it, than those most sullen about the striped jersey. If ever there were crabbed and despite-itself acknowledgements of a felt superiority, then here we had one in this ludicrous comparison of Hickey with Quinn. This is a world in which the most unsporting and dangerous of behaviour can be excused simply because you share a county with the player in question, because Michael Kavanagh, even though he was marking no-one, was seemingly constantly hitting a Clare forward and should have been sent off. Said individuals can only derive satisfaction if one of the ‘traditional’ counties grants their shallow and ill-informed prejudices attention simultaneously much desired and much resented. Kilkenny have played Clare four times during the latter county’s supposed golden era, winning three of the contests. The Banner County has won two Senior All-Irelands and one Minor title since 1995. During the same period Kilkenny have won three Senior, two U21 and two Minor titles. As he has previously stated, + is a great admirer of Co. Clare. But certain Dalcassians are spoiling it for the rest of a great county.

VII

A lot of nonsense has been talked in a wider sense about disciplinary matters this summer. If the last four months has a thematic sinew, it is this preoccupation. Liam Griffin is a well-meaning, decent and likeable individual. Quite how difficult and contentious a topic discipline has become can be gathered by even his tendency to nod. Griffin’s comments on the subect in the Sunday Tribune made little sense. Praising the 2004 Championship in overall terms, the Wexford analyst offered a caveat: “On the downside, we’ve seen referees refuse to send off players for blatant striking, a worrying trend. TJ Ryan, the aforementioned Eoin Kelly and Derek Lyng all escaped stonewall red cards when they shouldn’t have, whereas Conal Keaney and John Mullane, he of give-a-dog-a-bad-name fame, were the losers. Let’s bring in the sin bin for next year.”

The logic here is rather odd. Ryan, Kelly and Lyng are brought together as if they had committed exactly the same offence. Why essay such a list? The elision is patently incorrect. The last-named player didn’t strike anyone with a hurl. His offence was a high clumsy tackle when Kiltormer’s David Hayes made to go outside him and then stepped back inside. Slowness to react meant that the Emeralds midfielder could have seen a red card for a high challenge. No fair observer could deny the contention, so many players having been sent off in such a scenario. That said, it is difficult to argue that there was malice in the tackle -- and that a yellow card therefore was a risible decision, as Griffin claims. Lack of malice alone does not alone ensure immunity from dismissal. Granted, of course. But it is ridiculous to equate this moment with Kelly’s wild swing across Eddie Enright or Ryan ‘giving’ the boss of his hurl to Jonathan O’Callaghan. The former was not put off balance by a neat change of bodyweight. The latter acted during a pause in play. Derek Lyng reacted clumsily during a high-speed passage of hurling.

Those notations alone make the necessary point. A commentator does not deserve the adjectival accolade of ‘balanced’ simply because he is prepared to criticize a Kilkenny player. It is well to remember John Carroll’s collision with Ronan Curran the day before. Curran was static, allowing the Roscrea man a chance to pull out of so robust a contact. Carroll chose not to do so. Hayes was running at full pelt in Lyng’s direction, making any such choice on the Urlingford man’s part a much more difficult affair. That Carroll didn’t even receive a caution -- and that Griffin fails to note so obvious a comparison, one that weakens the contextual case for Lyng’s supposedly cut-and-dried dismissal -- speaks for itself. Just because your team is still in contention for ultimate honours doesn’t mean that different criteria apply. Or has your columnist being missing something? He hopes not, any road. It is likewise baffling that the ex-Wexford manager feels that Mullane has been hard done by. If he is scathing about the failure to censure Ryan to a higher degree, how can he exempt Mullane from the same stricture, someone whose rush of blood to ill-calculating head led him to act in almost exactly the same manner as the Limerick defender?

Keaney might, particularly in the light of the Garryspillane full-back’s escape, be deemed very unlucky to have been handed down a three-month suspension. The Ballyboden man was careless more than anything else. A month, as per Mullane (another who acted, unlike him, when the sliothar was not in the general vicinity), would have sufficed -- if a straight red was required at all, that is. The De La Salle flyer’s case is another one again. To the extent that footage showed him raising his hurl towards Brian Murphy’s faceguard, there was a serious case for a ban that would have seen him excluded for the rest of the championship. To the extent that he had been, on numerous accounts, grossly provoked by the Bride Rovers corner-back, the corner-forward garnered sympathy, even though he was entirely wrong to raise his stick. His extraordinary and moving post-match interview probably inclined the referee’s report towards a rubric made famous in the 1980s by a Visage number, leading to official emphasis on what he supposedly did with his elbow rather than on what he actually did with his camán. It is also wrong to equate Kelly and Ryan with each other in another sense. The Mount Sion player’s transgression occured during play; the Garryspillane full-back’s action did not. That point is a significant one, as are other ones that hover, unexamined, over this discussion.

VIII

Those issues as yet insufficiently analysed involve, amongst other topics, the question of the relationship proper between new technology and the rulebook. The advent of faceguards on helmets is a relatively new thing in the game. Like all new developments, it poses difficulties and conundrums for the rulemakers. There is an argument to say that, with the advent of this gear, hurlers’ behaviour has changed in a way. With the faceguard offering protection to the face, there are occasions when a player, feeling an opponent has been out of order in some fashion, taps his faceguard with his hurl to warn him off. It is probably what anthropologists would term ‘display mode’. Referees need to be advised on how to deal with such behaviour.

There is a cognate argument to say that this behaviour is less dangerous than, say, the flake Benny Dunne drew on Jerry O’Connor’s legs when the fact that the ball was out of play removed any shred of justification for pulling in such a manner. The boss of a hurl, laid flat or placed heel forward, cannot go through a faceguard. This is not for a moment to say such behaviour is acceptable. It is not and should nearly always merit a red card, depending on the vigour with which the action was carried out. Yet there is a view that it is not as bad an offence as it may look. Hurlers are behaving in this fashion precisely because they believe the faceguard ensures no damage will be caused to their opponent. Eoin Kelly’s wild swipe across Eddie Enright’s waist was far more likely to cause serious damage to him than a tap of the blade a hurl to his faceguard, however worse, visually, the latter action would have looked.

Hurling, by definition, can be a dangerous game. It involves thirty strong fit men careering around a field with potentially lethal implements in their hands. An unspoken code of honour, over and above the rulebook, has to prevail if the sport is to be viable in the longterm. That code involves various implicit understandings, allowing a whole spectrum of sporting behaviour ranging from Corinthian players such as Pat Stakelum to highly robust competitors who still know where to draw the line. It is important to know where that line occurs. Terence McNaughton’s autobiography, Sambo: All or Nothing (199?), is suffused with regret about the moment in a club game when he struck an opponent with his stick.

If we imagine a sliding scale for striking offences with the hurl, then, it would go something like this. All such offences are, potentially, red card ones. The point is what tariff, by way of a subsequent ban, the offence should attract. Dunne’s flake would rank about 5 in this schema, leaving him with a month’s ban for reckless play. Kelly’s swing at Enright would be about 6.5-7, leaving him in a grey zone between a one- and a three-month ban. Gerry Quinn’s actions would be about 8-9, meaning that a twelve-month ban would be appropriate. Striking in the facial area in the final frontier. And yet, with the advent of faceguards, raising a hurl to that area mightn’t always be as grave an offence -- though it could never be a minor one – as it would seem.

The point of a faceguard is straightforward. It is there to prevent two entities -- the sliothar and the bás of a camán -- coming into contact with a player’s facial area. Flat or inclined, the bas has a bigger circumference than a sliothar. Even if the ‘toe’ of the hurl was shoved at the faceguard, it would not be able to penetrate far enough inwards to cause significant damage. The handle of a hurl, however, is a far different matter. Its circumference is significantly smaller than that of a sliothar and will fit between the bars of a faceguard. Players know these basic facts. Knowing them, they are responsible for behaving in ways that respect these innovations in gear. To strike a faceguard with the bás of a caman is a serious offence and should nearly always merit a straight red card. There is a slight hesitation only because a slight ‘tap’ on the grid, if it is far from a vicious stroke, might see a yellow card sufficient. Timing is important, too. Players, if out of order in the early minutes of matches, are better warned than sent off if such a margin for warning exists. Common sense must prevail. If they fail to heed this caution, though, the ultimate censure should swiftly follow.

IX

The GAC’s decision to take no action against Gerry Quinn -- not even to request an interview with him -- was a very curious one. The fact that Quinn was not mentioned in the referee’s report in relation to Shefflin’s exit from the field is, on the basis of precedent, neither here nor there. Action has been taken against players in the past when they had not been cited. An obvious instance in this context is the suspensions handed out to Paul Delaney, Michael Ryan and Peter Queally in 1995 after a Munster quarter-final. These bans came about pretty much as a direct result of certain pictures being highlighted by Ciarán Barr on The Sunday Game. Another case that comes quickly to mind is the three-month ban Colin Lynch received in 1998. Here, the word of an ‘official observer’ was made the centrepiece of the case in the absence of the referee’s account and/or relevant footage. Yet another case in point is the three-month suspension handed down to Eamonn Corcoran last summer after a League game against Galway. Corcoran was banned even though the account of the incident was founded on the account of a ‘fourth official’ and even though the player he allegedly struck, Kenneth Burke, spoke up for the Templemore man.

For the GAC to say last month that they were not taking any action due to the lacuna in Pat Horan’s report flummoxed most observers. The decision made no sense either in absolute terms -- highly relevant footage was available – or in relative ones: precedent was there, folded into the recent and the very recent past. + saw the list of people that comprises the GAC. To his surprise, almost all of the committee came from counties where hurling is very much the poor relation. Perhaps the expertise wasn’t there to grasp the footage’s technical points? If so, the make-up of the body should be adjusted with some alacrity, needless to say. However bad the decision made, it would be better that said decision was made out of incompetence than out of a craven unwillingness to make a hard call. Competence, at least in principle, can be restored or added to a grouping. Susceptibility to various kinds of pressure is a rather more difficult failing to ameliorate.

The GAA is a great organization. But it surely knows how to make a cross for its own back, how to give people who never had any affection for its ideals and achievements a stick with which to beat it. The need to create coherent and consistent disciplinary procedures is a far more pressing matter for the GAA than whether or not soccer should be played in Croke Park. One reading of the current situation is that the GAC have managed to create a template for anyone seeking to distance themselves from unacceptable behaviour on the field of play: initial denial; an apology of sorts if relevant footage is highlighted; then the threat of legal action. All told, it was a very poor day’s work by the GAC. We can only hope that, down the line, no hurler will pay a heavy price for this inertia.

+

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Lets make one thing abundantly clear. There is no right time or valid occassion to strike an opponent on or about the head. Any player who does so, in today's world of helmets and faceguards will be lucky more often than not, and merely upset or distract his opponent. From time to time, a player who engages in this practice will do damage. Gerry Quinn undoubtedly did. TJ Ryan certainly did. John Mullane less so. How you swing the hurley or hold it makes little matter. A well placed jab can do more damage than a wild flake. The thing is you are playing with fire when bringing an opponents head into play. Take a look at Tommy Walsh's face guard and see would you like to wear it while Noel Hickey goes 12 rounds with it, using his bas. There are large openings around the cheek and eye areas providing much less protection than the standard Mycro faceguard. It wouldn't remotely stand up to a well aimed belt of a hurl but would deflect most Noel Hickey type pulls.

Gerry Quinn used two hands to direct his hurley at Shefflin's head. Noel Hickey did likewise with Tony Griffin. Those are the facts.

Shefflin ended up on the ground bleeding, Griffin thankfully played on.

Where conjecture comes into play is when deciding what exactly Quinn was trying to do when contesting the dropping ball with Shefflin. All we have to go on is the RTE footage from distance. We see Quinn repeatedly jabbing at Shefflins head while looking in the direction of the ball. How this differs in severity from what TJ Ryan or John Mullane did escapes me.

From the footage you cannot be sure what exactly Quinn is aiming at. Shefflin's face? His helmet? You can say though that he is playing with fire by jabbing at his opponents head with his hurley. An automatic red card offence in my view. A striking offence. One hand or two directing the hurley makes no difference in my opinion.

A cuter player, with dangerous intent could cause just as much damage with one hand directing the stick as with two. You could argue that Quinn was reckless entirely in his actions in attempting to put Shefflin off but that he did not intend to injure him so grieviously. Comparisons with drunk drivers are null and void. A sending off and banning offence.

You could equally argue that he intended to cause Shefflin major and career threatening injuries. A sending off and banning offence again. Personally I would go with the first verdict. More reckless than evil intent and to my mind the TV images are not conclusive for either argument.

Now a question for +. How do Quinn's efforts compare with TJ Ryan's or Mullane's? To my mind all three are of a similar nature, with the only saving grace for Quinn being that there was a ball in play. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Three assaults on an opponents facial area with the hurley.

Where Clare people take umbrage with the above nonsense is in the vilification and scapegoating of one player as opposed to the backing away of any judgement on the other two. The three players could each have had 3 months and had no complaints.

Furthermore, your personal animosity towards one of the three is oozing from everything you write on the matter. Comments on academic performance, choice of venue in which to watch the AI, 'swaggering'. This contrasts massively with your comments on Mullane. Recall last years MF and the wild manner he swings back his hurley. Recall an unfortunate incident with a KK underage player.

We in Clare will certainly condemn the actions of Quinn when contesting the ball against Shefflin. A ban would most definitely not have been harsh. A 12 month ban most certainly would have been. It is our right to give him the benifit of the doubt and suggest recklessness rather than savage intent when the evidence is inconclusive. The issue at hand is what is an approprite punishment for striking a players facial area. Then apply that sanction to those guilty of it. Quinn is no more or less guilty than the other two.

We have no intention of standing idly by while you continue your vendetta against him and the Clare team in general though. The actions of the KK full back line were disgraceful in the drawn game. Have you never stood in Cork among opposition fans and listened to what Davy Fitz has to endure?

Brian Cody loses his temper regularly. His disgraceful attack on the ref during the Galway game shows this. Noel Skeehan is derided in his own county for his manner, let alone elsewhere. Why these chaps decided to stay out of the Clare dressing room says as much about them as it does about Clare. Consider the calibre of men in that dressing room for god's sake before posting your bar room gossip around here. Consider the man that is Harry Bohan.

Just where do you get off thinking that KK are beyond reproach and Clare and their likes are animals. Where do you get off deciding the intent or otherwise of Quinn or Lohan or Hickey? Kilkenny do not have 28 AI's having never pulled a dirty stroke. Martin Comerford did as much to Quinn as was done on to him. Hurling is at times a rough sport. People will be injured and players will overstep the mark. Apparently 'poleaxing' and 'beheading' opposition players in KK is the mark of a team up for a game. A legend like John Power can be split from ear to ear in a club game and the striker reamains eligible for next season. All we ever ask for is fairness and an unbiased account. Your love letter to Henry Shefflin earlier in the week removes any objectivity from your writings that say Martin Storey or Pete Finnerty might have. I on the other hand do not know Gerry Quinn at all, or Brian Lohan for that matter. I wonder what exactly Shefflin makes of all these articles you write about him?

There is a superiority in evidence in your posts that I see very evident in my current read. 'Star of the Sea' by Joesph O'Connor. An account of a coffin ship voyage to the US, it gives snipets from Times editorials and Punch cartoons commenting on the deficiencies of native Irish people and the inevitability of their ending up in a famine state by their actions. We know all about famine in Clare. Take yourself off to Loop Head and look for evidence of the 1000's that lived on that peninsula before black '47. Go to Ennistymon and gaze at the Cross on the hill or Ciaran O Murchada's inscriptions on the famine memorial on the way to Lahinch. I'll point you to old men whose grandparents recall the Bodyke evictons. We know all about famine in Clare.

We know all about famine in hurling too. I'll point you out men who hurled in the 50's and the 60's and 70's and the 80's and 93 and 94, when we were so near and yet so far. I'll point you out great men like Stack and Honan and Smyth. Through it all, we never lost our dignity as a county and be it in O'Connells time or Devalera's or Lohans time, we mighn't always have had enough hurlers to bring home the bacon, but we had hurlers and we still have hurlers, who go out to hurl. Be it mass famine in the 19th century or hurling famine though, one thing is always the same, in the bad times, in the really bleak times, there was always a ++++++ like you doling out the soup.

[This message has been edited by TheFifthColumn (edited 09 September 2004).]

+'s stuff is noteworthy only in that he could desperately use a subeditor. If one were to hang on his every word, you'd be a long time twisting in the breeze.

Fifth Column,

Dondé vives en la tierra de la gente 'que tiene corazon'? Eres hermano del chico dosvecestanbueno?

And in fairness to KK people, on the site where it was posted, they didn't take the bait either.

Lets move on

quote:

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Originally posted by Ungrateful_Whelp:
Jesus Christ, is this still going on? I think it's time all sides put this to bed.

+'s stuff is noteworthy only in that he could desperately use a subeditor. If one were to hang on his every word, you'd be a long time twisting in the breeze.

Fifth Column,

Dondé vives en la tierra de la gente 'que tiene corazon'? Eres hermano del chico dosvecestanbueno?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by paulm:
Time to let it go.

And in fairness to KK people, on the site where it was posted, they didn't take the bait either.

Lets move on

---

quote:

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Originally posted by TheFifthColumn:

Originally posted by Ungrateful_Whelp:
[b]Jesus Christ, is this still going on? I think it's time all sides put this to bed.

+'s stuff is noteworthy only in that he could desperately use a subeditor. If one were to hang on his every word, you'd be a long time twisting in the breeze.

Fifth Column,

Dondé vives en la tierra de la gente 'que tiene corazon'? Eres hermano del chico dosvecestanbueno?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ungrateful_Whelp:
Basically it was 'where do you live in Spain?', if that's not being too nosy.

In Zaragoza myself.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by TheFifthColumn:

Showing Your True Colours

I

Henry Shefflin’s face is no more worthy of protection than that of any other player in the Association. Special Junior B mullocker to serial All-Star, all are important. All are equal before the rules and before a code of honour no less powerful for being unwritten. That said, no-one should be under any illusions about how near the Kilkenny forward came to losing an eye in the replay against Clare. The injury he did receive needn’t, in and of itself, be a matter for condemnation. The same can be said of the far more grave injury he narrowly avoided. Jimmy Finn, Tom Walsh and Pat Hartigan, amongst other intercounty players, had to retire after suffering eye injuries that came as a result of an accident on the field of play. More recently, Tullaroan’s John Coogan had his club career finished when he suffered damage to an eye last summer. Like most sports, hurling has an element of risk attached to it. More than most sportsmen, though, hurlers need to exercise great care due to their use of a camán.

II

The incident on July 31th last cannot credibly be compared to the four tragic incidents mentioned above. The manner by which the Ballyhale man suffered harm was disgraceful. Discussed in some detail in the seventh instalment of this column, the clash nevertheless demands more discussion due to the gravity of the issues involved and the untenable comment on it that issued from some quarters. The devil is in the detail, let it be remembered -- as will again be evident. Shefflin’s pragmatism -- his willingness to accept an apology from Gerry Quinn in highly dubious circumstances -- received its deserved reward. The three-time All-Star will play on Sunday in his fifth Senior All-Ireland Final, seeking a fourth Celtic Cross. Quinn will probably be watching in some bar or other. What becomes of one Corofin player’s career is, in the heel of the hunt, a matter of little interest to Kilkenny followers.

The issue does not, however, end there. It does not terminate with Noreside disdain for utter recklessness as regards career-ending injuries. Kilkenny supporters are not just Kilkenny supporters. They are also GAA people and hurling people. + is no different. The GAC’s decision was of great interest to them in this regard -- and a very great disappointment, in far more than local contexts. The disciplinary body erred very seriously in saying that the Clare half-back had no case to answer.

III

Why? The seventh ‘Stubborn Nore’ limned the key point as regards footage of the incident. Take what perspective you like but one aspect cannot be gainsaid. Gerry Quinn had both of his hands on his hurl. It is hard to understand why no-one else except The Rattler picked up on this point. Many of the commentators in the media are ex-intercounty players. They should have every appreciation of the facet’s significance. That Peter Finnerty, previously a distinguished intercounty wing-back, saw nothing wrong with the challenge was nothing short of incredible. Nor did Finnerty as an out-and-out columnist, not being dependent on staying in good favour with various intercounty squads so as to harvest interviews and quotations in the coming seasons, have to bite his tongue -- as seemed to be the case with some commentators (Denis Walsh in The Sunday Times being a notable and an honourable exception). Anyone who has played hurling at any level -- unless they are totally blinded by bias -- will understand the implications of this issue.

Doubt the assertion? Close your eyes. Go with your mind’s eye. Imagine yourself with two hands on the hurl in left hand-on-top fashion. Imagine running the hurl sideways to your left, with some vigour, with two hands still on it. Now try the same mental process when you have your left hand solely on the hurl. Your right hand is in the air, awaiting proximity of the sliothar. Now let the hurl run sideways to your left.

What emerges from this process? One very clear thing, say what you like. To quote the relevant passage in the previous column: “The most salient aspect of the encounter? This one: that the defender had both hands on his hurl when -- and twice, mind -- he struck out at his opponent’s facial area with the butt of his stick. If the Corofin wing-back’s left hand had been the sole one gripping the camán, then a certain argument could be made. If that arrangement had been the case, it could be argued that Quinn was merely reckless in the manner he attempted to balance himself while attempting a high ball. Players sometimes swing back, in such a position, so as to recalibrate their body weight.//No such contention is, in this instance, credible. Both of his hands were on the hurl at the time those cowardly blows were made. Ergo: the cameo wasn’t about jostling under a high ball. It was about a desire, momentary or otherwise, to visit damage on Henry Shefflin’s face.” Such requotation is warranted because the only way Quinn’s culpability in the matter can be assessed is through analysis of a technical nature. Such analysis has been sorely lacking in both the national media and the GAA’s disciplinary arm, as well as in some acrid online discussion.

Still doubt the significance of both hands being on the hurl? One way of underlining its import is to read the interview given by Gerry Quinn after the game to The Clare Champion (August 6, 2004). As recorded by Gerry McInerney and Seamus Hayes, Quinn sketches a picture of an orthodox and colloquial challenge that went wrong: “I did not deliberately strike Henry Shefflin. We were tussling for possession under a dropping ball. I grabbed the ball and raced forward before striking the ball towards goal.” There are a number of unsatisfactory emphases in this account. Carefully read, it offers a very sketchy picture. The defender patently seeks to imply that both men were seeking to win the sliothar, their fetching hands outstretched, their shoulders and upper bodies struggling for advantage. As it happens, Quinn errs in saying that he gathered the ball at first attempt and broke away up the field. What actually happened is that the ball fell to the ground before he managed to control it. Small matter, really -- although it does indicate how inexact, tellingly or otherwise, Quinn’s recall of the moment quickly became. Of rather more weight is how the wing-back strives to imply that he had only one hand on the hurl. He plainly realizes, at some level, the nature of the inference to be made about intent if his two hands were gripping the stick.

Another inference, in fact, can be made about Quinn’s initial response: that he thought Shefflin had done his hamstring. The comment was not just risible: its blustering tone is easily taken as the acoustic of someone with something to hide. While + did not do a degree in Medicine at UCD, he could confidently state that sportsmen who have just ripped a hamstring do not tend to bleed in the eye area. He would also imagine such an observation is not beyond Gerry Quinn, whatever he studied at UL. The serious question remains: why invent patent nonsense if you are not seeking an alibi?

The footage likewise demonstrates another heinous aspect to the blows. The Banner back clearly goes to strike with the handle of his hurl a second time even though Shefflin, at this point, is stumbling backwards. Again, this simple point, discernible to anyone with the eyes to look, is very significant. The Kilkenny forward was struck twice through his faceguard even though, on the two occasions, he was in a different posture: standing erect the first time, falling backwards the second time. Is there any way of reading this facet other than to hold that there was a consistency in the area targeted? It certainly indicates consistency as regards total recklessness about the likely effect of his digs. Equally, it has been said that the fact Quinn wasn’t looking directly at Shefflin is a mitigating factor -- is a factor that even clears the Corofin man of any malicious intent. It would be hard to turn up more unintelligent comment. That Quinn wasn’t looking at Shefflin makes the offence even worse, since it meant he had even less control over where his hurl would strike. And make no mistake: Gerry Quinn meant to strike, as even the most rudimentary technical analysis demonstrates.

IV

One particular category -- ‘intent’ -- has therefore occasioned much debate. Unfortunately, these deliberations have brought forth scarce little intelligence or coherence. ‘Sideline Cuts’ in the Sunday Tribune (August 22, 2004) offered this perspective: “This column can’t understand the mystification that’s been expressed in some quarters over the outcome of the Gerry Quinn/Henry Shefflin affair. Of course Quinn got off.//Pat Horan didn’t see fit to mention the incident in his report, a situation that didn’t change when the GAC sought further clarification. Barry Kelly, the nearest linesman, spotted nothing untoward. Proving intent on Quinn’s part was clearly impossible. Therefore the Clare player was always going to receive the benefit of the doubt.” This contribution is shrewd, in its understated way, about the ‘politics’ of discipline within the GAA. But it is naïve, for whatever reason, about the issue of proof. As outlined here, there was a way of assessing intent on the basis of certain technical aspects. If the techniques used in hurling are not relevant to disciplinary matters, then we really have arrived in a world authored by Lewis Carroll.

Writing in the Irish Examiner (August7, 2004), Eamonn Sweeney made even more of a hames of the issue: “Gerry Quinn was careless”, Sweeney allowed, “but it’s unlikely he meant to damage Henry Shefflin’s eye.” Sweeney has lately rebranded himself as a ‘GAA fanatic’ (as the subtitle as his latest tome has it). This characterization will have startled readers of his earlier sports memoir, There’s Only One Red Army (1997) -- an incongruity that will form the basis of a future ‘Stubborn Nore’. Yet even Sweeney, who appears to know exceptionally little about hurling beyond what he can glean from record books, should be able to rise above this nonsense. The issue is one of ‘kind’ (using the hurl in the general facial area), not one of ‘degree’ (using the hurl to target an eye). It simply baffles + how so many observers cannot make this most fundamental of distinctions. To repose the question: would it have been (more) acceptable if Quinn merely had been seeking to break Shefflin’s nose?

The reductio ad absurdum of this approach landed in Martin Storey’s column for Ireland On Sunday (August 8, 2004). Storey was a fine hurler and is, by all accounts, a very decent man. But his take on the incident is nothing short of bizarre in its self-contradictions: “It is my opinion that Gerry Quinn intended to hit him but not to cause any damage.//The last thing the Clareman wanted to do was to put Shefflin in his hospital with an eye injury so serious that it required surgery.//At the same time, it’s clear to me that he wanted to give him a clatter, a physical reminder to try and intimidate his marker even though it didn’t work the way he planned.” Where to begin? We are asked to believe that someone can wish to strike another individual without wishing to cause him any hurt. Maybe so, maybe so. But that concession cannot be the end of the story. If hurt, of whatever seriousness, results from the stroke, then blame, the key evaluation, obviously lies with the perpetrator.

The Wexford man’s vocabulary is similarly tangled. A ‘clatter’, in usual GAA parlance, denotes a shoulder or a heavy physical challenge made on the borderline between legality and illegality. Digging at a fellow hurler’s face with the butt of a hurl is very far from the vast majority of people’s understanding of a clatter. What Quinn intended (“planned”) was to have a go with the handle of his hurl in or about Henry Shefflin’s faceguard. If you someone use his stick in such a fashion about 5’8” off the ground, there is no other sensible conclusion. What results from that plan is Quinn’s responsibility. What else is there to say? Storey does, it should be noted, grope towards the reality of the situation -- though only to push the recognition away again: “he hurt his case when he insisted that he thought Shefflin had pulled his hamstring when he first saw him writhing on the ground in pain.//How a player could have looked to have injured his leg with blood spilling from his head after jostling for a dropping ball is beyond me.” It is beyond nobody if you recognize the alibi factor.

V

Gerry Quinn’s actions in Semple Stadium on July 31st should be repugnant to all right-thinking and genuine followers of hurling. To use the handle of his hurl in such a fashion is nearly the worst thing a hurler can do on the pitch. About the only action more heinous would be to approach an opponent and deliberately jab the handle into his face. Again, the analogy that was used in the previous ‘Stubborn Nore’ -- and in a couple of other quarters -- holds. There is as little point in claiming that Quinn did not intend to harm Henry Shefflin’s eyes as there would be in arguing that an intoxicated driver who knocks down and fatally injures a pedestrian did not intend to kill that person. Perhaps not. But that’s not the point. The driver, by sitting behind the wheel of a car with so much alcohol taken, must take responsibility for the consequences of his or her actions. ‘Responsibilty’ is the key concept on this occasion, not ‘intent’. If you dig with the butt of your hurl in an opponent’s facial area, then you are responsible for any injury that befalls him. How simpler can it be articulated? Not having precisely intended to blind him in one eye is neither here nor there.

Likewise, Quinn must take responsibility for jabbing backwards with the handle of his hurl. As already noted, it is far from good enough to say that he was looking the other way. If anything, that factor makes the offence still worse, since it gave him even less control over the handle’s penetration into the faceguard. Besides, the force laid behind the two jabs -- sufficient to shatter a bar in Shefflin’s faceguard, remember -- speaks for itself. Where is the scenario in which such activity comes under common-or-garden ‘jostling’ under a high ball? This is a guy who also planted Martin Comerford into the neck -- an action that could have killed the O’Loughlin Gaels man by shattering his windpipe.

To hive off all disciplinary matters under the rubric of ‘intent’ does not, in any event, cohere. Strictly defined, who ever intends to commit a foul except in certain determinate situations? Did Michael Walsh intend to catch the sliothar up three times in the semi-final, thereby giving away a crucial free at a crucial juncture? Intentional fouls mainly arise when a player sees it is the least worst option: fouling too far out the field for the resultant free to be converted, pulling down a man through on goal and so on. The obsession with the category of ‘intent’ betrays an unwillingness to think intently about the category’s place in the rulebook.

VI

Such moments tend to see people show their true colours. + is very proud of his native parish, his native county and his native country. He admires and respects anybody fond of their origins, from wherever they hail. But there is a time for narrow pride and there is a time to be absolutely clear-eyed. But some things on a hurler’s parts are just plain wrong. Some things on the part of those involved in hurling’s administration are, on occasion, equally wrong in another fashion. Decency must prevail. It is gave + no pleasure to say it at the time but Pat Dunphy was totally out of order last winter with those notorious remarks he made about Brendan Cummins in his official report for 2003 to the Kilkenny Co. Board. Nor you would have to be from Templemore or from Co. Tipperary to know that Eamonn Corcoran’s three-month suspension last year was a scandal (one that exercised the GPA curiously little).

Even though he drew down, ultimately, only a threat of legal action on RTE and on himself, Tomas Mulcahy is to be thanked not just by Kilkenny folk but by all lovers of hurling for the manner in which he sought to draw attention to the incident. Doing so may have saved another player, down the line, from losing an eye. Noted for being a sporting player himself during his career, Mulcahy’s perspective is all the more credible due to his neutrality in the matter -- a trait emphasized by his own native county still being in the championship. It did not surprise + to see, in an online context, that Aragorn, Colombia, Galtee Mountain Boy, Gunther, Home of Hurling, Hud, Mulcair, Ormonde Boy and Ryan all deplore any attempt to mitigate Quinn’s carry-on. None of these men are from Kilkenny, either. If + found himself to be of the opposite opinion to one held by these gentlemen, he would nearly immediately switch sides, so chary would he be of disagreeing with them as a collective. He has never found them to be on the wrong side of a hurling argument where principle is involved.

A pity a few more couldn’t learn from their fairmindedness and lack of bias. The particular problem, in whatever forum, with Banner supporters who refused to see that Quinn had done anything wrong was that they couldn’t be dismissed as unrepresentative, so perfectly in tune were they with the Clare Co. Board’s official position. A piece by Peter O’Connell in The Clare Champion (August 6, 2004) -- ironically titled ‘Board Chairman Lashes Out’ – quoted Michael McDonagh as saying that said Co. Board would defend Gerry Quinn “to the bitter end”. Ger Loughnane’s criticism of the Corofin defender, especially in this context deserves great credit. Ironically, though, it is Loughnane’s protege, Anthony Daly, who was responsible for sending out a side given to tactics which saw the Kilkenny management refuse to visit the losers’ dressing-room. +’s earlier comments on this topic occasioned great ire in certain quarters. It saddened to record such information about a hurling culture and a county for which he has such affection. If he had subsequently learned the information was even partially incorrect or overblown, he would have issued an apology in this column. No such retraction, partial or otherwise, is necessary -- quite the opposite, in fact. And that is the last + is saying on this sorry matter. For all some individuals’ acridity on the subject, not one of them has been prepared to account in other terms for Kilkenny’s no-show.

There was related saffron and blue-bound myopia in the refusal to deal with the specifics of Quinn’s manoeuvre. Despite repeated invitation to do so, these individuals never acknowledged this factor. Do they know anything about hurling at all? Instead, they fell back repeatedly on the specious mantra about ‘intent’ and the fact that the half-back wasn’t looking at the half-forward when he struck the blows. The relevance of these two issues have been demolished.

There was also an attempt to adopt a particular metaphor. Seemingly, there was some class of a scales in operation. Seemingly, what Gerry Quinn did was somehow lessened, on this view, by the alleged behaviour of the Kilkenny full-back line – and of Noel Hickey, in particular. Initially tilted high up in the air by the gravity of the offence, the Corofin wing-back’s activity was brought back to a more horizontal pitch by adding supposed black-and-amber antics to the other side of the scales. Noel Hickey’s conduct on the hurling field may not always stay within the rules. + has never had any problem acknowledging that facet of his play. He is, however, if a comparative register is your thing, hardly any worse than Brian Lohan for utilizing the darker aspects of defensive play. + is a great admirer of Lohan as a hurler and wishes to say no more other than to note the inconsistency. The notion that the Dunnamaggin full-back’s behaviour in any way approximated to Quinn’s actions is ridiculous. Why, if nothing else, was said passage not subject to the same scrutiny on The Sunday Game? Also, even if Hickey’s hurl connected with a Banner faceguard, there was no possibility of it entering the faceguard, it being the bás of the hurl that was in question. As explored below, this point is a very important one.

No-one has higher ‘regard’ for Kilkenny hurling than those most prejudiced against it. No-one thinks more about it, is more obsessed with it, than those most sullen about the striped jersey. If ever there were crabbed and despite-itself acknowledgements of a felt superiority, then here we had one in this ludicrous comparison of Hickey with Quinn. This is a world in which the most unsporting and dangerous of behaviour can be excused simply because you share a county with the player in question, because Michael Kavanagh, even though he was marking no-one, was seemingly constantly hitting a Clare forward and should have been sent off. Said individuals can only derive satisfaction if one of the ‘traditional’ counties grants their shallow and ill-informed prejudices attention simultaneously much desired and much resented. Kilkenny have played Clare four times during the latter county’s supposed golden era, winning three of the contests. The Banner County has won two Senior All-Irelands and one Minor title since 1995. During the same period Kilkenny have won three Senior, two U21 and two Minor titles. As he has previously stated, + is a great admirer of Co. Clare. But certain Dalcassians are spoiling it for the rest of a great county.

VII

A lot of nonsense has been talked in a wider sense about disciplinary matters this summer. If the last four months has a thematic sinew, it is this preoccupation. Liam Griffin is a well-meaning, decent and likeable individual. Quite how difficult and contentious a topic discipline has become can be gathered by even his tendency to nod. Griffin’s comments on the subect in the Sunday Tribune made little sense. Praising the 2004 Championship in overall terms, the Wexford analyst offered a caveat: “On the downside, we’ve seen referees refuse to send off players for blatant striking, a worrying trend. TJ Ryan, the aforementioned Eoin Kelly and Derek Lyng all escaped stonewall red cards when they shouldn’t have, whereas Conal Keaney and John Mullane, he of give-a-dog-a-bad-name fame, were the losers. Let’s bring in the sin bin for next year.”

The logic here is rather odd. Ryan, Kelly and Lyng are brought together as if they had committed exactly the same offence. Why essay such a list? The elision is patently incorrect. The last-named player didn’t strike anyone with a hurl. His offence was a high clumsy tackle when Kiltormer’s David Hayes made to go outside him and then stepped back inside. Slowness to react meant that the Emeralds midfielder could have seen a red card for a high challenge. No fair observer could deny the contention, so many players having been sent off in such a scenario. That said, it is difficult to argue that there was malice in the tackle -- and that a yellow card therefore was a risible decision, as Griffin claims. Lack of malice alone does not alone ensure immunity from dismissal. Granted, of course. But it is ridiculous to equate this moment with Kelly’s wild swing across Eddie Enright or Ryan ‘giving’ the boss of his hurl to Jonathan O’Callaghan. The former was not put off balance by a neat change of bodyweight. The latter acted during a pause in play. Derek Lyng reacted clumsily during a high-speed passage of hurling.

Those notations alone make the necessary point. A commentator does not deserve the adjectival accolade of ‘balanced’ simply because he is prepared to criticize a Kilkenny player. It is well to remember John Carroll’s collision with Ronan Curran the day before. Curran was static, allowing the Roscrea man a chance to pull out of so robust a contact. Carroll chose not to do so. Hayes was running at full pelt in Lyng’s direction, making any such choice on the Urlingford man’s part a much more difficult affair. That Carroll didn’t even receive a caution -- and that Griffin fails to note so obvious a comparison, one that weakens the contextual case for Lyng’s supposedly cut-and-dried dismissal -- speaks for itself. Just because your team is still in contention for ultimate honours doesn’t mean that different criteria apply. Or has your columnist being missing something? He hopes not, any road. It is likewise baffling that the ex-Wexford manager feels that Mullane has been hard done by. If he is scathing about the failure to censure Ryan to a higher degree, how can he exempt Mullane from the same stricture, someone whose rush of blood to ill-calculating head led him to act in almost exactly the same manner as the Limerick defender?

Keaney might, particularly in the light of the Garryspillane full-back’s escape, be deemed very unlucky to have been handed down a three-month suspension. The Ballyboden man was careless more than anything else. A month, as per Mullane (another who acted, unlike him, when the sliothar was not in the general vicinity), would have sufficed -- if a straight red was required at all, that is. The De La Salle flyer’s case is another one again. To the extent that footage showed him raising his hurl towards Brian Murphy’s faceguard, there was a serious case for a ban that would have seen him excluded for the rest of the championship. To the extent that he had been, on numerous accounts, grossly provoked by the Bride Rovers corner-back, the corner-forward garnered sympathy, even though he was entirely wrong to raise his stick. His extraordinary and moving post-match interview probably inclined the referee’s report towards a rubric made famous in the 1980s by a Visage number, leading to official emphasis on what he supposedly did with his elbow rather than on what he actually did with his camán. It is also wrong to equate Kelly and Ryan with each other in another sense. The Mount Sion player’s transgression occured during play; the Garryspillane full-back’s action did not. That point is a significant one, as are other ones that hover, unexamined, over this discussion.

VIII

Those issues as yet insufficiently analysed involve, amongst other topics, the question of the relationship proper between new technology and the rulebook. The advent of faceguards on helmets is a relatively new thing in the game. Like all new developments, it poses difficulties and conundrums for the rulemakers. There is an argument to say that, with the advent of this gear, hurlers’ behaviour has changed in a way. With the faceguard offering protection to the face, there are occasions when a player, feeling an opponent has been out of order in some fashion, taps his faceguard with his hurl to warn him off. It is probably what anthropologists would term ‘display mode’. Referees need to be advised on how to deal with such behaviour.

There is a cognate argument to say that this behaviour is less dangerous than, say, the flake Benny Dunne drew on Jerry O’Connor’s legs when the fact that the ball was out of play removed any shred of justification for pulling in such a manner. The boss of a hurl, laid flat or placed heel forward, cannot go through a faceguard. This is not for a moment to say such behaviour is acceptable. It is not and should nearly always merit a red card, depending on the vigour with which the action was carried out. Yet there is a view that it is not as bad an offence as it may look. Hurlers are behaving in this fashion precisely because they believe the faceguard ensures no damage will be caused to their opponent. Eoin Kelly’s wild swipe across Eddie Enright’s waist was far more likely to cause serious damage to him than a tap of the blade a hurl to his faceguard, however worse, visually, the latter action would have looked.

Hurling, by definition, can be a dangerous game. It involves thirty strong fit men careering around a field with potentially lethal implements in their hands. An unspoken code of honour, over and above the rulebook, has to prevail if the sport is to be viable in the longterm. That code involves various implicit understandings, allowing a whole spectrum of sporting behaviour ranging from Corinthian players such as Pat Stakelum to highly robust competitors who still know where to draw the line. It is important to know where that line occurs. Terence McNaughton’s autobiography, Sambo: All or Nothing (199?), is suffused with regret about the moment in a club game when he struck an opponent with his stick.

If we imagine a sliding scale for striking offences with the hurl, then, it would go something like this. All such offences are, potentially, red card ones. The point is what tariff, by way of a subsequent ban, the offence should attract. Dunne’s flake would rank about 5 in this schema, leaving him with a month’s ban for reckless play. Kelly’s swing at Enright would be about 6.5-7, leaving him in a grey zone between a one- and a three-month ban. Gerry Quinn’s actions would be about 8-9, meaning that a twelve-month ban would be appropriate. Striking in the facial area in the final frontier. And yet, with the advent of faceguards, raising a hurl to that area mightn’t always be as grave an offence -- though it could never be a minor one – as it would seem.

The point of a faceguard is straightforward. It is there to prevent two entities -- the sliothar and the bás of a camán -- coming into contact with a player’s facial area. Flat or inclined, the bas has a bigger circumference than a sliothar. Even if the ‘toe’ of the hurl was shoved at the faceguard, it would not be able to penetrate far enough inwards to cause significant damage. The handle of a hurl, however, is a far different matter. Its circumference is significantly smaller than that of a sliothar and will fit between the bars of a faceguard. Players know these basic facts. Knowing them, they are responsible for behaving in ways that respect these innovations in gear. To strike a faceguard with the bás of a caman is a serious offence and should nearly always merit a straight red card. There is a slight hesitation only because a slight ‘tap’ on the grid, if it is far from a vicious stroke, might see a yellow card sufficient. Timing is important, too. Players, if out of order in the early minutes of matches, are better warned than sent off if such a margin for warning exists. Common sense must prevail. If they fail to heed this caution, though, the ultimate censure should swiftly follow.

IX

The GAC’s decision to take no action against Gerry Quinn -- not even to request an interview with him -- was a very curious one. The fact that Quinn was not mentioned in the referee’s report in relation to Shefflin’s exit from the field is, on the basis of precedent, neither here nor there. Action has been taken against players in the past when they had not been cited. An obvious instance in this context is the suspensions handed out to Paul Delaney, Michael Ryan and Peter Queally in 1995 after a Munster quarter-final. These bans came about pretty much as a direct result of certain pictures being highlighted by Ciarán Barr on The Sunday Game. Another case that comes quickly to mind is the three-month ban Colin Lynch received in 1998. Here, the word of an ‘official observer’ was made the centrepiece of the case in the absence of the referee’s account and/or relevant footage. Yet another case in point is the three-month suspension handed down to Eamonn Corcoran last summer after a League game against Galway. Corcoran was banned even though the account of the incident was founded on the account of a ‘fourth official’ and even though the player he allegedly struck, Kenneth Burke, spoke up for the Templemore man.

For the GAC to say last month that they were not taking any action due to the lacuna in Pat Horan’s report flummoxed most observers. The decision made no sense either in absolute terms -- highly relevant footage was available – or in relative ones: precedent was there, folded into the recent and the very recent past. + saw the list of people that comprises the GAC. To his surprise, almost all of the committee came from counties where hurling is very much the poor relation. Perhaps the expertise wasn’t there to grasp the footage’s technical points? If so, the make-up of the body should be adjusted with some alacrity, needless to say. However bad the decision made, it would be better that said decision was made out of incompetence than out of a craven unwillingness to make a hard call. Competence, at least in principle, can be restored or added to a grouping. Susceptibility to various kinds of pressure is a rather more difficult failing to ameliorate.

The GAA is a great organization. But it surely knows how to make a cross for its own back, how to give people who never had any affection for its ideals and achievements a stick with which to beat it. The need to create coherent and consistent disciplinary procedures is a far more pressing matter for the GAA than whether or not soccer should be played in Croke Park. One reading of the current situation is that the GAC have managed to create a template for anyone seeking to distance themselves from unacceptable behaviour on the field of play: initial denial; an apology of sorts if relevant footage is highlighted; then the threat of legal action. All told, it was a very poor day’s work by the GAC. We can only hope that, down the line, no hurler will pay a heavy price for this inertia.

+

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[This message has been edited by TheFifthColumn (edited 09 September 2004).]

quote:

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Originally posted by TheFifthColumn:

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We know all about famine in hurling too. I'll point you out men who hurled in the 50's and the 60's and 70's and the 80's and 93 and 94, when we were so near and yet so far. I'll point you out great men like Stack and Honan and Smyth. Through it all, we never lost our dignity as a county and be it in O'Connells time or Devalera's or Lohans time, we mighn't always have had enough hurlers to bring home the bacon, but we had hurlers and we still have hurlers, who go out to hurl. Be it mass famine in the 19th century or hurling famine though, one thing is always the same, in the bad times, in the really bleak times, there was always a ++++++ like you doling out the soup.[/QUOTE]

Ah yes: a fine mixture of the obtuse (refusing to see the distinction between the bás and the handle of a hurl, especially as regards faceguards) and the utterly irrelevant (Davy Fitz's marriage and opposition fan's bad nature; a novel by Joseph O'Connor) and the spectacularly irrational (myself as a agent of the Great Famine in Co. Clare).

I have never said Kilkenny are "beyond reproach". Non-point from a frothing eejit. The cadences of the column clearly indicate my state of mind.

Those who have disgraced Clare hurling do not include me. I didn't tell Shefflin's marker to spit at him so as to try and get him sent off. It was a long way from players walking off bare-chested having given their jersey to an oponent in the 2002 Final. What would be the middle term of that syllogism, eh? Any ideas?

'Henry Shefflin's Face' was not about Henry Shefflin. Hard to see how that can't be registered.

Only saw this thread now and couldn't let some things pass. But I am saying no more on this subject since I am dealing with the blind. Thank God that statement is only a metaphor.

quote:

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Originally posted by ned morrissey:
Forgive me please,i don't post on this discussion board,mainly lurk but where is the proof of this statement,"I didn't tell Shefflin's marker to spit at him so as to try and get him sent off"?

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A bit of advice Ned,I would'nt start too many posts around here with 'Forgive ne please'.This place is a bit like playing corner forward in Rearcross.You should breathe in through the nose,out through the mouth,hop a few cups off the wall,think of the parish,and then post.

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Originally posted by ned morrissey:
Thanks for the advice dan,i know from personal experience ye tipp crowd can be a tough lot,but even the roughest itinerant can have manners you know!

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How do you know your the roughest?

quote:

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Originally posted by ned morrissey:
Forgive me please,i don't post on this discussion board,mainly lurk but where is the proof of this statement,"I didn't tell Shefflin's marker to spit at him so as to try and get him sent off"?

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Quite a few of us have been asking the same question for a number of weeks now, ned.

Good luck in getting any sort of answer at all. Gutless smearing is the order of the day chez +.

quote:

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Originally posted by + Boy:

Ah yes: a fine mixture of the obtuse (refusing to see the distinction between the bás and the handle of a hurl, especially as regards faceguards) and the utterly irrelevant (Davy Fitz's marriage and opposition fan's bad nature; a novel by Joseph O'Connor) and the spectacularly irrational (myself as a agent of the Great Famine in Co. Clare).

I have never said Kilkenny are "beyond reproach". Non-point from a frothing eejit. The cadences of the column clearly indicate my state of mind.

Those who have disgraced Clare hurling do not include me. I didn't tell Shefflin's marker to spit at him so as to try and get him sent off. It was a long way from players walking off bare-chested having given their jersey to an oponent in the 2002 Final. What would be the middle term of that syllogism, eh? Any ideas?

'Henry Shefflin's Face' was not about Henry Shefflin. Hard to see how that can't be registered.

Only saw this thread now and couldn't let some things pass. But I am saying no more on this subject since I am dealing with the blind. Thank God that statement is only a metaphor.

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The relevance of Davy is clear. For ten years some of the Clare players have had to put up with the most outrageous slander, from players, supporters and now apparently 'columnists'.

I reckon the famine reference is quite apt. A pontificating article like yourself would have gone down a treat back then, telling the starving misfortunes where they're going wrong. It takes a certain type of arrogance to hook yourself onto a great and noble tradition such as that of Kilkenny hurling and to denigrate other, less obvious traditions from this vantage point. It takes a certain type of arrogance to imagine that there is anything more than geography that seperates KK hurlers and Clare hurlers. A tipp hurler told me the other day that all the top teams are as good or as bad as each other in their off the ball antics. Ask the Cork corner back who received Brennans best pull of the day.

What bugs you is that your hero Shefflin was involved and an individual you patently dislike was the offender.

Any more comments on TAN? I presume you are talking about Lohan when you mention Shefflin's marker?

Likewise, I've enough of this subject too. Enjoy the high moral ground.

[This message has been edited by TheFifthColumn (edited 18 September 2004).]

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Originally posted by + Boy:

Only saw this thread now and couldn't let some things pass. But I am saying no more on this subject since I am dealing with the blind.

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Similarly, I've only seen this bit now, and feel it deserves comment - whether you deign to reply or not.

The reason you'll say no more is because you haven't the cojones to stand over what you say.

Okay? Just so we have that clear now.

It's worth reinforcing as you try to bluster your way out of a situation entirely of your own making.