Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. Or so the saying goes. Not so my friends. Not so. May your nuts be sledged with a hammer…
We all know what happened last month when Tyrone side Derrytresk played Dromid Pearses in the All Ireland semi final. Or do we? Well we know what happened according the people who made the DVD, sent selective highlights to the media and posted clips on YouTube.

The PR onslaught was a work of genius. It would have drawn an admiring glance from Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s scheming Spindoctor. (Yes I know all about Blair and British politics and the UK because I live in the UK, or so I was told venomously by Munster ‘well wishers’ in the Dromid aftermath). To those morons, you know nothing of what it was like to be a Gael in the North over the years, so save it.

Remember what happened Campbell? He spun and spun but in the end, no-one believed a word he said. In any row there are usually three stories. Mine, yours and what really happened. The third is the truth.

Having lost the match on the pitch, a sense of outrage, bitterness, frustration, jealousy or just that plain old bitch called spite led Dromid to start a PR Shock and Awe campaign against the team that beat them. It was A Grade with Commendation stuff. The ideal media mix. TV, radio, newspapers, social media – you couldn’t buy that coverage. A lot bought the story though.

Having read accounts of the match on both sides, in the discussion boards, on Twitter it is clear there are indeed two sides to this episode. The fact that one side chose to run to Liveline, itself the last refuge for every malcontent, begrudger and whinger on the island is significant.

Foreign workers claiming the dole and doing the double. Talk to Joe. Business contract awarded outside Ireland. Talk to Joe. School bus gets flat tyre. Talk to Joe. Tyrone team wins All Ireland semi final. Talk to Joe. There was a row. Talk to Joe. Children were terrified. Talk to Joe.

Tubridy has demonstrated time and again on the Late Late Show that mainstream presenters don’t get GAA. Duffy reprised the act that day on his show. These invaders from the Land of O’Neill coming down to Portlaoise to scare the shite out of our children how dare they. It was carnage. On the radio that is.

Take two small parishes (remember these are Junior Football teams) give them a run in the county championship. They win their county title. They win the provincial title. Before they know it they are within a goat’s bleat of Croker. From his air-conditioned studio, seated on his padded recliner, does Joe Duffy have any idea the passion and the fire that will consume these lads when they open that Dressing Room door and head for the grass?

Have he or his ilk ever been in a Championship team? Experienced the sense of mayhem when a row breaks out? And believe me they do in GAA games, now and then when the stakes are high. Instead of telling people to wise up to f***, it makes good radio to give these wounded souls a hearing.

The Dromid PR machine whinged its way along remorselessly. Throw them out of the final. We can’t afford the fine. The most pathetic intervention came from Dr Crokes calling for Segregation – sorry of course I meant ‘family ticket packages.’ We know what we know and we know what we don’t know. I hope Jamie Clarke and Co fillet them too on Sunday.

As is the GAA way, or the CCCC way, suspensions were imposed, including a 48 week ban for the notorious handbag assailant, a woman we are told. She is being advised by a legal team to have her suspension downgraded to a purse. That is Widow Twankey stuff.

On appeal, one of the Derrytresk 8 was left free to play, the fine halved and additional punitive sanctions imposed. Firstly a word to Derrytresk lads, you shouldn’t have let on about the anonymous donor paying your five grand until after the fact. Dromid would never have made a PR error of that nature.

The additional punitive measures are a kick in the balls to a club of this size. The banning of all mentors from the touchline verges on spiteful, seriously harming the Derrytresk management capability to run the game. The touchline is a lonely place for a manager and he could do with some assistance during a game of this size. For the duration of the weekend I would appoint the Assistant Manager as Club Secretary, if that requires a special club EGM, and I would name whoever else is needed on the subs bench.

Why the CCCC felt the need to appoint its own water carriers for Derrytresk is beyond me. It raises a player welfare issue in that the team may have their own hydration strategy. Four randomers aren’t part of that nor should they be.

My final point is this. A few years back our club got to a football All Ireland Final. We lost, but everyone was in it together, managers, waterboys, ball boys – you name it. It was inspirational and spurred the club to greater things. That included promotion and eventually a senior county championship. It also helped underage recruitment.

Banning Derrytresk from competing in Ulster or representing Ulster for five years is not befitting of the GAA. Where the club is claimed to be the most important unit. We had a situation earlier in the year where in Antrim a referee was attacked and the Club punishment was subsequently lifted. A more serious event, yet a less punitive outcome. How can this be?

This aspect of the process does not serve the GAA, does not help the club and certainly does nothing in PR terms other than pander those that want to Talk to Joe.

Despite the clamour around Derrytresk, the picture in the Irish Times is impeccably timed and perhaps shades the PR war deep into injury time:

A previously unpublished photograph of the All-Ireland junior club football semi-final in Portlaoise shows Declan O'Sullivan (number 11) of Dromid Pearses in an altercation with a Derrytresk player at the end of the game. The photograph was taken by Eddie O'Neill, a Derrytresk club member who regularly takes pictures of club games.
Just consider this, were the shoe on the other foot, a Kerry team in the dock and a conclusive image of household name All Ireland winning Tyrone player shown in a national newspaper in the act of follow through. What would happen?

Therein lies the tale. I have read enough. No harm to Clonbur, my brother in law used to go there on holidays and he tells me it is a lovely place, but Derrytresk need this more than you do.

C’mon Derrytresk. Bring it home. Back to the Hill.