By now, anybody who cares has seen the pictures and has had their say. Nobody is in any doubt about what happened or about what should happen next. In the middle of a free-for-all the Donegal manager Jim McGuinness pushed the Kerry centrefielder Diarmuid O’Connor. It doesn’t matter that it was only a push.
Nobody reads the GAA’s Official Guide for recreation. It is long and dense and dry, and, like all rule books, the language is quasi-legal. But it is easy to get a sense of what the rule makers believe is important.
In Part Two of the GAA’s Official Guide, four pages are devoted to “Misconduct at Games by Team Officials”. A spectrum of potential scenarios are teased out, carefully. The incident involving McGuinness in Killarney on Saturday is covered explicitly in Category IVa: “Any type of physical interference with an opposing player or team official.”
If the referee Seán Hurson had seen the incident in real time, McGuinness should have been sent off. If it appears in his referee’s report now, or if the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) decides to intervene, the potential punishment is also clearly laid out.
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“Minimum: Twelve weeks suspension in all codes at all levels.”
McGuinness’s performance in the postmatch press conference when he was asked about the incident was peevish and tone deaf. When it comes to the media, McGuinness is not an innocent. He was a columnist on these pages and an analyst on Sky Sports when they were rights holders for live GAA matches.
He understands how it works: the audience want a plausible caption for the images on their screens and, in certain situations, they want answers to uncomfortable questions. By the time McGuinness reached the press conference, scenes from the half-time flare-up had already circulated widely on social media.
Did he think it would just be swept under the carpet? Did he think the reporters would be afraid to ask the question? After the 2012 All-Ireland final – which Donegal won – McGuinness refused to proceed with the postmatch press conference as long as a reporter, with whom he had an issue, remained in the room. On that occasion, regretfully, he got his way. Did he think he could control the room in that manner on Saturday?
Tommy Rooney from Off The Ball put the question about the incident and McGuinness’s response was risible. “Are you trying to get me a ban, Tommy?” he said. “Is that what you’re saying?”
For somebody with McGuinness’s level of experience, on both sides of the microphone, it was a cack-handed attempt at deflection. Shooting the messenger is the path of least resistance; it has never worked.
McGuinness ultimately didn’t answer Rooney’s necessary question, but in the course of his response he touched on a key point. “Out of 50 people, you’re finger-pointing me?” McGuinness said.
In recent years, as management teams have continued to swell in numbers, the GAA has become acutely conscious of sideline hygiene. There has been a rigorous clamping down on managers, selectors, maor foirne, water carriers and hurley carriers entering the pitch on a whim.
Managers have complained loudly about the communication barrier this has erected between the sideline and the players, but the GAA has refused to budge. McGuinness’s estimate of 50 people being on the pitch in Killarney after the half-time whistle blew is an overstatement, but, for certain, there were too many people on the pitch who had no business being there.
Hurson called the two managers together at the beginning of the second half and basically told them to clear the dugouts. In other sports, this is not an issue. In professional rugby, for example, the coaches sit in a coaches’ box, often behind a pane of glass.
Most GAA managers wear an earpiece during matches to receive feedback from somebody who is sitting in the stand and has a better view. The troops of in-game statisticians for intercounty teams typically sit at the back of the stand in search of the best view. Everybody accepts that the worst view is on the sideline and yet, in the GAA, there is a cultural insistence that it is the most desirable place to be.
After the events of Saturday, it won’t be a surprise if the GAA insists on more people sitting in the stands and even fewer people on the sideline.
In the context of the McGuinness incident over the last couple of days there have been many references to Ger Brennan, the Dublin manager, who is serving a 12-week ban for an altercation with a member of the Galway backroom team. The studio analysts on The Saturday Game and The Sunday Game over the weekend all said that Brennan’s suspension had been “too harsh”.
But Brennan took his appeal all the way to the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) and the sanction remained unchanged. The television pictures and the relevant section of the GAA’s Official Guide were both unambiguous. As long as the referee’s report was in order and no procedural cock-ups had been made along the way, Brennan had no chance of having his ban reduced.
The reason why the punishment for this offence is so severe is because managers and members of management teams are expected to uphold a certain standard of behaviour. The punishment for behaviour that steps outside the line is designed to be a deterrent.
On Saturday in Killarney, McGuinness made a consequential error of judgment. There will be a price to pay.
