Parnell Park tea party a dark omen for Dublin's year

Dublin should accept the penalties dished out following Sunday's disgraceful melee and concentrate on playing football to the best of their abilities, writes Sean Moran

Based on a traditional air, and also the title track of Horslips' 1975 album, The Unfortunate Cup of Tea finally found its moment in time last Sunday in Parnell Park.

Tossed by a spectator, displaying all the manly forbearance of the players on the pitch, at departing Dublin centrefielder Ciarán Whelan the hapless beverage then drew the wrath of Whelan's manager Paul Caffrey, someone who generally gives the impression of being unmoved by such random acts of indiscipline.

It then became a useful diversionary focus, as the smoke settled on another afternoon of disorder and blatant disregard for rules and sportsmanship.

That members of the crowd at matches have started to get involved is both worrying and dispiriting. If it continues to happen matches are going to end up like their soccer equivalents, monitored, heavily policed and with segregated attendances.

But the crowds are reflecting what happens on the field. Despite intense efforts to streamline both the rules on foul play and the committee-room procedures for dealing with their breach, Gaelic games continue to lack the necessarily iron-clad connection between misbehaviour and meaningful punishment.

If suspensions cut deeply they would be a hindrance to teams and consequently an unacceptably high price for indiscipline.

On one level it's easy to see why prospective loss of bonuses and other revenue confers responsibilities on players in professional sports in respect of their team-mates but on another level why should Gaelic athletes, whose commitment is so immense within an amateur framework, be at times incapable of observing that same discipline and self-restraint? The reason is that there's not sufficiently stark a probability of being punished.

Two case studies: the Omagh eruption between Tyrone and Dublin in February 2006 and last May's fracas in Thurles before the Cork-Clare match. In both cases we started with the events themselves, passed through the phases of belligerent self-justification and the usual jackass chorus of "trial by media", "handbags" and "you'd see worse at dinner-time on a retreat".

In the first case the whole raft of suspensions, painstakingly devised to punish those who had uninhibitedly enacted a couple of all-in brawls, was struck down on legalistic grounds that owed much to an attempt to second-guess the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA).

The Central Appeals Committee (CAS) of the time made the call that it would be worse to have the DRA strike down the suspensions than to do so itself. In a way that's plausible but highlights a growing problem in parallel with indiscipline and one that contributes to the difficulties in connecting misbehaviour and appropriate sanction.

Eleven months ago after the Thurles suspensions the GAA hierarchy was in agonies of anxiety waiting for the Cork appeals to run their course. This was partly because Cork had a big match on the horizon, which would be affected by the proposed suspensions and partly because county secretary Frank Murphy had registered so many procedural successes over the years. Eventually the suspensions stuck but not before they had been tested at every level up to the DRA.

The fact that legal process more appropriate to criminal trials than a sports organisation - with a supposedly voluntarily subscribed set of rules - has now become one of the hurdles those administering the games must jump increases the chances of disjunction between infraction and suspension.

The DRA was set up to divert those determined to take the GAA to court towards an independent tribunal and it has been a great success in that regard. But it is also being used as another avenue of appeal. Does anyone think, for instance, that Wexford, with a dismal Hurling League record and no claim based plausibly on either rule or fair play, would be trying this week to challenge their relegation if the DRA didn't exist and the only option was to go to the High Court?

What more can be said about Sunday? Dublin's woeful disciplinary record reflects the insecurity and lack of composure that perennially blights their championship campaigns. The involvement in such scenes of players who by temperament are anything but brawlers has to raise questions about preparation and mental conditioning.

But it also highlights the fact that Dublin evidently believe such indiscipline is justifiable on the grounds that it makes the team feel better about itself and is worth the outside risk of disciplinary action that actually bites.

After the match Caffrey accepted that what happened was wrong and had the grace to acknowledge referee Paddy Russell's stressful history with the county but too often there has been ambivalence in the way the Dublin management behave in and react to these situations: Omagh in 2006, Mayo and Hamburger Hill the same year, the O'Byrne Cup incident in which Wexford's Colm Morris was hit, Ryan McMenamin on the sideline in the floodlit league match in Croke Park and the greeting of Mark Vaughan as he was dismissed in the Monaghan match.

The contrite follow-up to the disgraceful incident in which the team statistician head-butted Monaghan's star forward was an exception to the trend but players who believe losing their heads and uninhibited brawling in some way constitute taking a stand or impressing opponents won't win All-Irelands.

Dublin county secretary John Costello took a lead yesterday morning in apologising for what had happened and accepting without appeal the fine imposed on the county board. It's up to individual players whether they decide to contest their proposed suspensions.

For the good of the association, which they have conspicuously embarrassed, and even themselves the players should do likewise and in doing so absorb the really important lessons of the weekend. Whelan to his credit already has.

In the words of Terence McSwiney: "It is not those who inflict the most but those who suffer the most who will conquer . . . " Iron men on a football field take the hits and continue to perform at a high level.

In last year's Football League then footballer of the year Kieran Donaghy was sent off against Fermanagh for brainless retaliation. Kerry manager Pat O'Shea didn't feel the need to put on a show of specious solidarity. "The points were important but they came at a price, having probably Kieran out for a month," he said. "It's something that I'm upset about, to be honest. We've had three games and men sent off in each of them. It's not something I'm really proud of. He's a high-profile player but he has to realise that and the responsibility that comes with it."

Kerry are not paragons of virtue but they embody the connection between genuine self-respect and All-Irelands.

[  smoran@irish-times.ie  ]