Time Ger to get back to hurling

It is now slightly over four years since I first met Ger Loughnane, then a selector of the Clare hurling team. This Burkean reflection is prompted by last Friday night's Munster Council meeting, on the Ennis Road, and the Theatre of the Absurd dramatics played out on its fringes.

That original encounter in July 1994 was a few days before the Munster final between Clare and Limerick. Anyone travelling what was already becoming a well-worn path to Loughnane's house in Shannon could expect a pyrotechnic exposition of the ills besetting hurling in the county.

Not alone was he articulate and utterly convincing when discussing Clare hurling, but he had ideas, theories about what needed to be put right - fitness, speed of hurling and commitment - and an unshakeable belief in his ability to implement all this. Most of all, he was reasonable. He weighed up other people's opinions and agreed or disagreed with them.

So what has happened? What rancid pathway has led to the controversies of the last week? An interview on local radio, premeditated to give offence, set the scene for a bizarre three days, culminating in Friday's Munster Council meeting at which Clare midfielder Colin Lynch was to appear.

At its nadir, the night featured Loughnane striding across the carpark, pursued by a crowd of favours-bedecked Clare supporters, in order to abuse an RTE crew for a misunderstanding that was largely his fault. The crowd shouted their approval as specious allegations of disrespect for both Clare and the Lynch family were levelled.

This is what Loughnane had said on arrival at the Limerick Inn, earlier in the evening.

"Last Monday, Colin's grandmother, whose pride and joy Colin was, sadly had a stroke and unfortunately just a few hours ago, she was taken off a life-support machine. So you will understand that Colin cannot be here tonight. Whatever happens here tonight pales into insignificance (compared) to what has happened to his family over the last few weeks."

RTE's Marty Morrissey broadcast to the nation that Lynch's grandmother had died. This was not true. But everyone who heard the statement assumed that she had indeed passed away.

In response, Loughnane jumped up and strode through the hotel demanding: "Where's Morrissey?" In fact, the RTE man should have been heading in the opposite direction wanting to know: "Where's Loughnane?".

After Sunday's semi-final at Croke Park, he absolved Morrissey, who on Friday night had been distraught at his error and rushed to the hospital where the Lynch family were. Loughnane was also reported as saying:

"Now I wasn't entirely blameless either, because when I made the statement going in, I should have said she was gone off all her medication instead of saying she was gone off her machine."

The whole Colin Lynch episode has been at the centre of Loughnane's attacks on authority. Essentially the grievances are that the media exaggerated the incident out of all proportion, that Lynch is a victim of inconsistent application of the rules and that his case was prejudiced before being heard.

There is validity to the argument about inconsistency. Players have got away with worse this season, and that is wrong. But inconsistency is a major problem for the GAA. Solving it requires a whole series of integrated measures which will restore a sense of certainty to discipline: if I do this, I will receive that punishment.

There is no evidence that Clare are specifically targeted by this inconsistency. Lynch's behaviour was caught on camera and deemed excessive. No one - to my knowledge - has suggested that he is a dirty player, any more than the team in general is a dirty team. But his indiscipline on this occasion has been severely punished.

As with civil and criminal law, the good fortune of other miscreants in escaping punishment - and Waterford's Michael White, Tony Browne and manager Gerald McCarthy come into this category for receiving more lenient treatment than ordained in the rule book - can't be used as a defence.

The question of a prejudiced hearing has not been adequately supported. Hearsay and a subsequently denied allegation of direct evidence don't add up. Any corroboration claimed by Loughnane in the punishment imposed being exactly as he had predicted - three months - is also questionable. After all, Rule 137 (A) (3) stipulates that the punishment for striking with the hurley is three months.

Complaints about a lack of due process at Friday's meeting are, in this contention, misplaced. Having failed to secure an injunction against his hearing taking place, Colin Lynch didn't turn up, sent along solicitor Jim Nash in his place and gave no explanation to the Munster Council.

The officers of his administrative unit, the Clare county board, refused to pass on the gravity of his grandmother's condition unless Loughnane was allowed access to the meeting.

By Sunday, the refusal of the Munster Council to allow a Nash or Loughnane to represent the absent Lynch had prompted the Clare manager into a dissertation on human rights.

". . . I never ever want to hear anybody talking again about abuse of human rights in other countries. There is an abuse of human rights going on within the GAA, where everybody should have the right to represent themselves or be defended. Colin Lynch nominated two people to represent him to the Munster Council. They were locked outside the door. They were not allowed to do so."

Any legal opinion sought here on the matter believes that Lynch's case is very poor. His personal hearing required a personal appearance. There is no recognised right to send someone along in your place if your presence is required.

Any sympathy for Lynch's family trauma was effectively defused by the refusal to reveal it to the council.

Jim Nash said yesterday that he had received no instructions to take the matter further in the civil courts and the case may now go on appeal to Central Council, and that is the player's right. The fact of the appeal implies acceptance of the suspension and a court is unlikely to intervene afterwards.

In the meantime, there is hurling to be done. In the light of the manifest failure of last week's antics to benefit the team on Sunday, Ger Loughnane should concentrate on what he does best - preparing and motivating Clare hurlers.

My colleague Tom Humphries wrote admiringly in Monday's paper: "Nobody gives better quotes or better value than Ger Loughnane."

Agreed. Could we have him back now?