GAA:GAA president Christy Cooney expressed his disappointment at the ugly scenes that marred yesterday's O'Byrne Cup clash between Kildare and Laois in Portlaoise where match referee Syl Doyle issued no less than seven red cards.
Five of those red cards – three Laois players and two Kildare players – were issued as a result of a single off-the-ball incident just after the half hour mark. The incident spiralled into a full-on brawl where up 28 players got involved.
Laois’s Billy Sheehan, Peter O’Leary and Kevin Meaney got their marching orders for their part in the ugly scenes, while Kildare’s Johnny Doyle and Morgan O’Flaherty also saw red.
Laois full-back Denis Booth was then sent to the line for a strike on Dermot Earley in the second half, while Padraig O’Neill was the third Kildare man to go after he was handed a second yellow card just before the end.
“I’m not exactly aware of what happened because I haven’t seen the reports today,” said Cooney, who was speaking at the launch of the Ulster Bank Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups in Croke Park today.
“I only heard the radio reports yesterday evening. It is very unsatisfactory – seven players getting red cards is not something that we are proud of and that I’m sure the Leinster CCC will deal with it as per the rules and take the necessary, appropriate course of action.”
The referee has already sent his match report to the Leinster Council, who will consider what action to take at the next meeting of their Competitions Control Committee on Wednesday.
Cooney is confident match officials on the day dealt with the issue satisfactorily and the referee’s report will be sufficient to deal with the matter. The use of video evidence is not an option due to the absence of television cameras in Portlaoise.
“The referee’s report should be able to deal with it. The referee has four umpires and his linesmen – they should be able to deal with the situation," added Cooney.
“There are seven officials involved from the Association and they seem to have dealt with the situation.
“Let’s see what comes from the referee’s report and it’s a matter for the Leinster CCC to deal with it, and we would hope that we don’t have a repeat and any stage this year and that we would have the standard and the quality by all our players that we had last year.
“It was tremendous and we want to get back to that. This was an unsatisfactory start but let’s move on. Let the CCC deal with it in Leinster and show the appropriate suspensions under rule."