O'Rourke faces big ban

THE chasm between officialdom and participants in the National League widened further yesterday, when John O'Rourke, the Shelbourne…

THE chasm between officialdom and participants in the National League widened further yesterday, when John O'Rourke, the Shelbourne midfielder, was handed a severe and record-equalling eight-game suspension for his part in the brawl between Sligo Rovers and Shelbourne.

Maintaining the tenor of the Disciplinary Committee's latest suspensions, the three other players sent-off in that game last Saturday week also received more than the statutory one-game bans.

Team-mate Mark Rutherford will miss two games, while the Sligo pair of Mark Hutchinson and goalkeeper Nick Broujos have each been suspended for four games.

Furthermore, the Dundalk player-manager John Hewitt has been banned for two games as a result of his dismissal in a reserve game with Home Farm, while the St Patrick's Athletic striker Ricky O'Flaherty incurred a one-game suspension for his sending-off against Bohemians.

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The punishment meted out to O'Rourke appears particularly harsh. Even allowing for the fact that he reputedly head-butted Hutchinson, it takes no account of his previously unblemished disciplinary record nor the clear impress ion that he was provoked after being punched in the face.

Aside from missing effectively one quarter of Shelbourne's league season, O'Rourke will be forever stigmatised with this suspension, as will the former Home Farm player Trevor Donnelly and the Finn Harps player Alan Doherty, each suspended for eight games last season.

Gerry Thornley

Gerry Thornley

Gerry Thornley is Rugby Correspondent of The Irish Times