Ger is a ledge
IAN O’RIORDAN
KILKENNY ARE quietly incensed that the incident in Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling semi-final which resulted in the severe hand injury to midfielder Michael Rice – now virtually certain to be ruled out of the final – looks set not to result in any sanction.
County board secretary Ned Quinn has confirmed that Rice will undergo an operation tomorrow to reset several broken bones in his hand, and also examine the exact extent of tendon damage, which could yet require further surgery.
But the nature of Rice’s injury is only part of their alarm in the aftermath of Sunday’s comprehensive victory over close rivals Tipperary.
The GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) have reviewed the video recording of the game to determine what, if any, further sanctions may be handed out in light of the several scenes of brawling and confrontation that marred the early stages of the match, and some later, more isolated incidents.
However, any further action has been deemed “unlikely”, according to a Croke Park source, against either team.
Rice’s injury was sustained in the 18th minute, when Tipperary wing back Pádraic Maher attempted a one-handed tackle with his hurl, along the sideline in front of the Hogan Stand.
Kilkenny manager Brian Cody was in close proximity of the incident and was clearly furious, although Cork referee Cathal McAllister let it go unpunished.
Quinn only went as far as to express his “surprise” that this wasn’t picked up by the referee, and declined to comment further on the incident, or the need for some sort of sanction.
“We’ll leave that to whoever looks after it,” he said.
But Quinn didn’t disguise his shock at the nature of the injury. “I’m not sure of the exact medical implications,” he said, “nor would I like to discus that, but the hand is broken anyway, we know that for certain, badly broken.”
It’s almost certain too that Rice will now miss the All-Ireland final showdown against Galway in just under three weeks – although Quinn stopped short of making that a definite.
“Look, I would never rule a fella out. But I am using that phrase very carefully, because it is highly unlikely that he’ll play in the All-Ireland.
“I just wouldn’t rule a fella out altogether.
“How soon he’ll be back is something I just don’t know. I’ve spoken to Michael on a number of occasions, and how do you think he’s taking it?
“Michael is one of those people that lives for hurling, so naturally he’s devastated.”
A statement on the Kilkenny website last night confirmed as much, adding that “this is most unfortunate for the Carrickshock clubman, who had shown an excellent return to form having recovered from injury earlier in the season”.
Sunday’s game was in fact the first time this summer that Kilkenny’s first choice midfield pairing of Rice and Michael Fennelly was in operation, as Fennelly was just back from a knee injury.
Cillian Buckley, who replaced Rice on Sunday, should take over for the final should Rice miss out as expected, although Buckley is back in action this Saturday evening as part of the Kilkenny under-21 team that also takes on Galway in the All-Ireland under-21 semi-final – a timely appetiser to the senior showdown.
While Tipperary may be escaping any further sanctioning on top of an already embarrassing defeat, county board chairman Seán Nugent will sit down with manager Declan Ryan and his backroom team over the coming days, the expectation being that their two-year term will not be extended.
Nugent has admitted that following in the footsteps of Liam Sheedy and Eamon O’Shea was always going to be a difficult task.
“Whoever came in after them (Sheedy and O’Shea) was going to be on a fairly sticky wicket, to emulate them and what they achieved,” he said.
“But they (Ryan and Tommy Dunne) were brave men to come in and do it.”
How Padraic Maher stayed on that field is beyond me, there were probably three different incidents he could have been sent off for.
No Fran, Patrick Bonner Maher, this one:
You’ve been.picked up by balls.ie CLD 
I thought Bonner Maher actually had a good year.
Couple of thousand views already.
"In all his glorious years with the Cats, Hickey was rarely seen outside his own 21.
I knew straightaway then that the game was up.
Minutes later, Corbett had Hickey isolated in front of the goal and, when a long ball came in, the Tipp man caught it and banged it to the net as a disoriented Hickey lay prostrate on the ground."
This ended the Lohan v Hickey debate.
[quote=“Kid Chocolate, post: 703433”]"In all his glorious years with the Cats, Hickey was rarely seen outside his own 21.
I knew straightaway then that the game was up.
Minutes later, Corbett had Hickey isolated in front of the goal and, when a long ball came in, the Tipp man caught it and banged it to the net as a disoriented Hickey lay prostrate on the ground."
This ended the Lohan v Hickey debate.[/quote]
When can we begin the JJ v Lohan debate?
Just a shame you didnt mention TFK in the clip, could have generated huge traffic to the site.
Rocko and I have been in extensive negotiations for a protracted period on becoming a regular columnist.
This was just something I threw together on my laptop using Movie Maker.
It turned out better than I expected.
Hopefully this leverage will make Rocko cough up the big bucks.
Or at very least a fucking hoodie. He owes me at least 6 of them at this stage.
I might add a TFK promo caption into it. Maybe.
This was the kind of viral marketing opportunity I’ve onto Rocko about for years.
Shame he was too tight to give CLD a hoody.
dont bother mate, people who view that shit arent wanted around here
Too late, mate.
And for some mysterious reason. it can’t be undone.
I imagine you can easily add an annotation to a youtube video, cld.
[quote=“The All Seeing Eye, post: 703437”]
dont bother mate, people who view that shit arent wanted around here[/quote]
I’m surprised you havent had a comment to make yet on the latest developments in Wexford GGA mate.
:rolleyes:
It won’t allow me make it available for mobile phones.
Anyone know how you enable it?
Does it need to pass a certain amount of views?
surprisingly enough it hasnt made its way to paradise yet
what is it?
Something you Italians would be very familiar with.
[quote=“The All Seeing Eye, post: 703443”]
surprisingly enough it hasnt made its way to paradise yet
what is it?[/quote]
Reports in todays examiner claim the entire senior cship is rigged down there. Cant link to it at present.
[font=Verdana][size=3]On the Line: Donal Óg Cusack on Hurling[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Tuesday, August 21, 2012[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]The way Kilkenny took Tipperary apart in the second half on Sunday is something that they will remember for a long time. Kilkenny haven’t just beaten all their great rivals in the past few years, they’ve handed out thrashings to them. And still they keep going. Still they are hungry.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]In the second half on Sunday, Kilkenny answered so many questions about themselves that we forgot the other question that was being asked by a lot of people at half-time. Not where are Kilkenny going, but where is hurling going?[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Many hurling games are now talked about in terms of their brutal physicality. Already it has started with the All-Ireland final. If you thought Kilkenny and Tipperary was physical, wait until you see what’s next. A mushroom cloud over Croke Park![/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]All great teams change the sport they play. They come up with a way of playing which makes the sport itself change. There is much, much more to Kilkenny than their physicality and if that part of the game gets ratcheted up every summer, it is as much because of the obsessions of other counties as it is about Kilkenny.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]EVOLUTION[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Still, whenever people try to start a discussion about the way hurling is evolving they run into the same arguments. You’re just being anti-Kilkenny. It’s a man’s game. Sure it was only handbags.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Well, it is a man’s game and Kilkenny are the best team to have played it. Look at Henry Shefflin’s pass for Kilkenny’s first goal on Sunday. It was special, a perfect expression of the skills they have brought to the game - power, precision and perfect accuracy, and all executed at break-neck speed. The overall state of the game isn’t Kilkenny’s responsibility. It’s the GAA’s. If the game gets more and more physical it’s because teams respond to the challenge set in more and more physical ways, and because the game is refereed that way. Kilkenny can only play and beat what is put in front of them.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]I don’t believe for a moment that the only way, or even the best way, to beat Kilkenny is to concentrate on being more physical than they are. I believe that the next development in hurling will involve a return to moving the ball quicker and into space. To even think about that at the moment, though, you need to be able to compete physically. That will happen if the GAA lets it happen. And when it does happen Kilkenny won’t disappear. There is a fair probability that they will just do that better than anybody else too.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]PHYSICALITY[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]When we look back at this time in hurling, though, we won’t just remember it for Kilkenny’s brilliance but for the way in which the game has changed. It’s not the same game that I started out playing in the 1990s. When we talk about hurling these days we spend a huge amount of time speaking about ‘physicality’. Teams psyche themselves out of matches these days worrying about physicality. Players are judged on whether they can stand up to that physicality. And the point is that there is actually no point in having the discussion. The game is what it is until the GAA looks at it and decides that the Rule Book needs to be dusted down.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Ger Loughnane made a good point about what happened in the first minute or two in Croke Park on Sunday. He said he hadn’t seen a start like it since the 1998 Munster final replay between Waterford and Clare. Ger was right. Except there is one difference. Brian Lohan and Michael White got red cards very, very early that day as soon as the off-the-ball stuff was stopped. And afterwards Colin Lynch received a three-month suspension. The match (or the start of it) was the controversy of the summer.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]‘IT’S A MAN’S GAME’[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]On Sunday, Michael Duignan described the early off-the-ball stuff as ‘unbelievable’. RTÉ said there were five rows going on at once. Cyril Farrell looked a bit shocked and at half-time he started to ask an important question.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]“You have to say, where are the rule books?”[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]He was just getting going when he was interrupted by the line which ends all arguments these days about the state of hurling.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]“It’s a man’s game,” said Tomás Mulcahy.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]I don’t know. We need to move beyond these facile arguments and look at the bigger picture. To me there’s nothing manly about some of the dark arts that have been allowed to quietly creep into hurling these days. Fellas kicking each other. Fellas giving each other the butt of the hurley. Pulling at face guards. There’s nothing manly about high tackles and pulling and dragging and body charges. [/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]I love hurling. It’s my life. It’s changing in front of my eyes, though. There are, as Cyril Farrell said, different standards being brought to different games. If the Sligo and Fermanagh hurlers were playing in Enniskillen or somewhere on Sunday afternoon and produced the same scenes that we saw in Croke Park there’d be a lot of their lads who wouldn’t be playing again until Christmas.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]It isn’t hard to change things back. Again, as Cyril Farrell said on Sunday, referees are making their own rules at the moment. Players need to know that every game will be played under the same set of rules. And simple things can be done that don’t reduce the ‘manliness’ of the game but make it fairer.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Ger Loughnane said on Sunday that there was a danger that somebody would start analysing the opening of the game on video and start blaming people for what went on and seeing who hit who. There’s no one injured, he said.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]However, if players and managers knew that the video would be looked at (as with the 1998 Munster final replay or as with ‘Semplegate’. I have form, so I might as well bring it up before somebody else does!) and that they might end up missing an All-Ireland final, I doubt if the scenes would have happened at all. There are different and more manly ways of standing up to another team and proving yourself.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]THE SPARE HAND[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]One of the main problems with hurling today is the curse of the ‘spare hand’. When I was a kid you either had both hands on the hurley or you went in looking for a ball with your spare hand held up as if you were asking a question in class or riding a horse in a rodeo. You hit with your shoulder and used your body aggressively and the rest was down to skill and speed and your wits.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Now, the spare hand is used for pinning one of your opponents’ arms down by his side, preferably the arm that has his catching hand on the end of it. The spare hand is used for pulling your opponent down on top of you to make it look as though you have been pushed from behind. The spare hand is used to interfere with his hurley. The spare hand is for getting a grip of his waistband or jersey so he doesn’t move. The spare hand is for grabbing the face guard. The spare hand is for protecting yourself when you body-check somebody. The spare hand is for raising to tackle a man high at neck level when he tries to go past you. The spare hand is for stopping the player so your team-mates can swarm around him and force a turnover with their spare hands.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]That’s not blaming anybody. It’s just stating a fact about about the way the game has gone.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]When I was a kid if a player came at you with the ball it wasn’t the rule that you stopped him by any means possible, using your spare hand and your ability to stop a speeding car by letting it run into you. You stayed on your toes in front of him, you moved backwards, tried to play the ball off his stick, tried to read which direction he was going to feint, you got ready in case he stopped short and went onto his back foot or flicked a handpass over your head. He played with his head up looking for the options. The rules rewarded skills. Those skills aren’t dead but the rules aren’t rewarding them so much anymore.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]On Sunday, Lar Corbett took a lot of stick on the television for trying to mark Tommy Walsh out of the game. Wherever the idea came from I don’t see what the fuss was about. It’s become normal for a team to drop players back into their own half to create a sort of swarm chaos to stop the other team scoring. Once one team does it, it virtually forces the hand of the other team.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]It was only a matter of time before somebody took it further and decided that a lot of the trouble they we’re having to deal with was coming from wing-backs, so why not crowd the opposition out at the source instead of at the other end. Will we get to the stage where the best players are always followed by a posse sent out to stop them in the new era of physicality?[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]GENERATING DEBATE[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]But nobody really wants to have this conversation. Nobody wants lads getting into trouble. Nobody wants anybody to think that talking about the game in terms of the big picture is sour grapes or cowardice or whinging. We’re all manly.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]So, look at it another way: sentiment. The summer of 1998 that Ger Loughnane talked about, I was there when it ended with Offaly winning the All-Ireland. They beat Kilkenny in a great and very intense final. Michael Duignan played that day and he’d probably survive today, but would there be a place for lads like Brian Whelehan, and Johnny Pilkington and the Dooleys? That win was a victory for hooking, blocking, flicking, first touch, quick movement, wrist hurling and imagination. Hurling wasn’t soft then but it rewarded different styles and different approaches.[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]I could be wrong but I don’t think that Offaly team worried too much about weight training and tackle bags and the ‘gun show’. And if the great Johnny Pilkington had a spare hand it was for lighting his cigarette. Will we never see that Offaly style again or the Newtownshandrum running game?[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]Or is it manly to even wonder…?[/size][/font]
[font=Verdana][size=3]This is the fourth of Dónal Óg Cusack’s exclusive ‘On The Line’ hurling columns, which will feature on GAA.ie throughout the summer. The opinions expressed in this column are personal and are not necessarily those of the Association[/size][/font]