Cooney insists GAA have not gone soft on discipline

GAELIC GAMES:GAA PRESIDENT Christy Cooney has defended the decision not to retain the Disciplinary Task Force in to the current year, and believes there is no immediate need to do so – despite the quite disturbing breakdown in discipline during Sunday's O'Byrne Cup tie between Laois and Kildare, which ended with seven red cards being issued.

The Leinster Council’s Competitions Control Committee (CCC) are expected to hand out some lengthy suspensions arising from the game when they meet tomorrow evening, particularly the incident which saw both teams engage in a mass brawl shortly before half-time, resulting in five players being sent off at once.

Cooney described the scenes as “very unsatisfactory” and yet insisted the GAA hadn’t taken their eye off of the disciplinary issue, nor deviated from their usual hard-line approach in any way.

This time last year, the GAA rolled out the experimental rules of the Disciplinary Task Force, which saw players being sent off on a yellow card, and being replaced, for certain cynical and dangerous fouls.

They came within eight votes of being passed into rule at Congress last April, and although Cooney hinted at the time that Central Council would almost certainly back a new disciplinary package for this year, it was subsequently announced in September they had decided otherwise.

“We took a decision at Central Council, because things went so extremely well in our championships last year, that there wasn’t a significant need for revisiting the changes,” said Cooney.

“That if everybody played within the rules, and the referees did a competent job, as they did last year, we shouldn’t see any problems.

“That’s still the situation. That’s not to say the referees won’t be enforcing the disciplinary rules that are there in our rule book. They certainly will. And have been told to do so. There is no ambiguity around that.

“We have standards that we’ve set, and we want our standards to be maintained. But they cannot be maintained without the full co-operation of our players that play our games. That’s the bottom line.

“If our referees and our players do their job we have no issues. And we would hope that we won’t have a repeat of what we saw on Sunday, and we get on with the sportsmanship that existed last season.”

Central Council’s decision not to proceed with the Disciplinary Task Force was seen as something of a turnaround at the time, particularly given the ultimately broad support for the experimental rules trialled during last season’s National Leagues.

The GAA’s director of games, Pat Daly, who was also part of the Disciplinary Task Force that drew up the experimental yellow-card rules, is still hopeful the ground made on disciplinary matters last year has not been lost.

“I’m not sure it was wasted,” said Daly. “There was a consciousness and an awareness there, last year, and while there was resistance at the outset, I think as things went on people began to realise that if you want a game based on skill then players have to take responsibility for their own behaviour.

“And when they misbehave they have to pay the price. I’ve long been of the belief that sending a player off, and substituting him, was the best way of ensuring that players took responsibility for their own behaviour, to ensure, as one manager put it, that there’s minimum disconnect between the rule book and what happens on the field.

“Last year there was a specific body there, with responsibility for the roll out of disciplinary matters. That body is not there now. But it’s the responsibility of anybody that’s involved in the administration of the game to have regard for what’s happening, to be vigilant, and to ensure the game is regulated in the most effective manner possible.

“The whole disciplinary issue has to be kept under constant review. You just can’t say we don’t have a problem. We have to be vigilant. Now, how that will be addressed is another issue.”

Cooney was adamant that just because there wasn’t a Disciplinary Task Force in place didn’t mean the GAA had gone soft on discipline: “We will always continue to monitor what goes on the field of play,” he said. “But there are no motions with regard disciplinary rules changes going before Congress this year.

“We made the decision at Central Council not to do it. But we’ll continue to monitor it and if we need to take a course of action we’ll do it in due course.

“I actually met with the referees on Saturday. They were all in Croke Park for their fitness and training, and met with the chairman of the referees committee. And they were very clear that there is to be no deviation from the standards we set last year, and that disciplinary rules are very important to us.

“And we invoke it as per the rulebook. And I think maybe that’s why things turned out the way they did in Portlaoise. I’m not aware of exactly what happened because I haven’t even seen a report on it. But it’s very unsatisfactory.

“Seven players getting red cards is not something we’re proud of and I’m sure the Leinster CCC will deal with it within the rules, and dish out the appropriate suspensions, under rule.”

The problem for the Leinster CCC however is the lack of video footage from which to present any further evidence of rule violation, and although the report of match referee Syl Doyle has been filed, it also remains to be seen if the players red-carded on the day make a personal objection to whatever sentence is handed down, particularly given the suggestion that some of the players sent-off weren’t in fact the main instigators of the fracas.

But, as things stand, Billy Sheehan, Kevin Meaney and Peter O’Leary from Laois, and Morgan O’Flaherty and John Doyle from Kildare, are likely facing at least four weeks’ suspension, thus ruling them out of the opening round of the National League on February 6th/7th, and in the case of Kildare, the second round as well, as they are out on the Saturday evening, February 13th.

Laois defender Denis Booth was also shown a straight red for wrestling with Kildare’s Dermot Earley late in the second half. Kildare substitute Pádraig O’Neill, the seventh player to be sent off, two minutes from time, is unlikely to face further suspension as he was dismissed on two yellow cards.