Kelly feels GAA treat players like children

HURLING HELMET RULING: FOR ANY sport to thrive and remain sustainable the strength of its personalities are important. From the evidence of the current vodafone All Star tour of Buenos Aires hurling is healthier than ever.

Unfortunately, the funniest incidents from an unforgettable week must remain closeted in the bosom of this great city forever. What goes on tour and all that.

Eoin Kelly from Waterford stalled to speak into the tape recorders though. It was some performance. The man is none too pleased with the incoming helmet edict from Croke Park.

“There are things they should be looking at and trying to improve not childish things like square balls. Just have a bit of common sense, ask the players’ opinions,” said Kelly.

“They have to make their money count. They’ll do something stupid next year, you can’t wear studded boots or something. That’s the way it’s going. Every year it’s something different. They do it for the National League and then they scrap it and go back to normal then. It’s games that fellas are training for six or seven months in the winter and the game could be changed on a ball given wide or something like that. They’re the ones that should be improved on. Say, if Diarmuid Kirwan wasn’t refereeing the game, maybe he could do umpire. Things like that or video analysis.

“We could have lost an All-Ireland quarter-final last year over it. Lucky enough we didn’t but we could have. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, the game is so fast. They’re the things you should change and not childish things like you have to wear a helmet and be in school for two o’clock.

“That’s the way it’s gone. They treat us like kids. Next year it’ll be ‘get your mammy to put on your helmet for you before you go out and play a game’.”

Kelly understands the medical reasons behind making head gear an essential part of the game from 2010 are irrefutable. Still, a hurler of his stature was bound to note some obvious problems. He was on to Cork’s Ronan Curran for a specially-designed helmet but the loss of peripheral vision will impact him and others who have never worn one in their intercounty careers.

“It is going to be hard. The GAA should really look at fellows over 25 who have not worn a helmet for 10 of 15 years. I don’t know if it is (driven) by insurance companies or what, but it is going to be wicked hard. Dan Shanahan, Ken (McGrath), fellows like that, they have not worn a helmet in 20 years.

“I’m 27. I have not worn one since I was 11 or 12. As John Mullane said there, it is grand putting it on in the winter but when you are going out on a sunny day and it is 24 or 25 degrees, it is going to be hard to wear it.

“It is like being stuck in a small room,” Kelly continued. “It is very claustrophobic for me, that’s how I feel anyway and I would not be great with claustrophobia anyway. I feel just a bit closed in by it. You just don’t have the same vision that you would have without the helmet.”

So, the faces of the Waterford team will be masked as they make what is arguably their last tilt at that elusive All-Ireland.

What really put Kelly out is the absence of consultancy with the players on this issue or most issues.

“Yeah but, no offence, we’re the ones playing the game so they hadn’t asked us on it.

“They just went off and made rules.

“What’s the point? The game is grand the way it is. If they’re doing anything they should have video evidence on shots going over the bar that are being waved wide.”