Imagine this scenario:
You are arguably the best attacking player in the country. You are in the last minute of the biggest game of the year so far. It is a drawn game. You have possession in your half of the field. You look up, pass the ball thirty yards to a team mate and get the jets on…knowing you will create space for a chance to potentially win the game.
As you accelerate up the pitch, you are confronted by a defender. He jams an arm across your chest into your throat. You slap it away. You play Gaelic football and the physicality is part and parcel.
The defender retreats for a moment and you see he is slightly wrong footed. You accelerate towards him in order to put him off balance and go past him. He grabs you by the neck of your jersey, preventing you from running past him.
You slap away his hand again…aggressively and with a closed fist. This defender is tough and strong and will not release you without a fight. The defender loses his grip and for a third time you try to accelerate past him.
This time the defender grabs you in a rugby tackle Brian O’Driscoll would be proud of. He drags you to the ground and your momentum causes you to roll over and over on top of each other. You end up on top of him, but the defender has now got your head twisted into the ground. He will not let go.
You try to get up but he has your neck clamped under his armpit. You struggle and try to use your core and arms to push your body up and away. But he won’t release you. You get some leverage, free an arm and manage to power down into his upper body, in an effort to get him to release you. He doesn’t.
A team mate of his comes along and grabs at the two of you. He strikes you into your stomach and you fall off the defender who has finally released his grip on you.
As you get up to your feet you look around at the linesman who is coming onto the pitch. Instinctually though, you turn your attention back to the game and return to try and get into a position to attack. Meanwhile, the second opposition player is shouting and motioning at the referee that you punched the initial defender.
The linesman calls the referees attention and deems it fit that you should be given a red card, while the defender who illegally tackled and restrained you FOUR times in 15 seconds is given a yellow card. The second player who struck you and waved and harassed the linesman in a manner abhorred with those of any honour in GAA, does not get a mention.
The game ends in a draw and you are suspended automatically for the next game. You appeal the decision but the learned men of the higher councils of the GAA see no wrong in what has happened.
Update: I had to take the video down which I made as I never asked for permission to use the footage. Apologies to the original owner of the footage: an amateur mistake on my part. Dermo has been freed to play tonight and may the best team win…
brilliant synopsis paul the camera never lies COYBIB.
Cheers Heffo!
This is outrages the people who sat on the hearing should give it up .It was right there in front of them or did they not bother not even look at it??????. Well the rest of the team will win the match for Dermot you cannot keep a good team down.But i hope they stop the short kick out it is wasting time, and get a kicker poor Clucke is not up to it any more but still the best keepers in the country. COYBIB.
Hopefully they at least give it some attention. And the rest of the lads will have the best motivation ever to win a game now, even if he is suspended…
Good man John. Great analysis of what really happened on Sunday. As someone who was there on Sunday I can’t believe Mayo have gone unpunished for anything. Hope all well with you.
Sadhbh
All is great Sadhbh…really good to hear from you here! Enjoy the replay, I hope to be home for the final 🙂 Hope all is going well with you too…
Completely biased in Connolly’s favour. I see you even put his “slap” in green so that it looks like it was OK ! Why didn’t you call it as it was – a punch and put it in RED ?
It is biased in Connolly’s favour as that is what the video evidence showed. I rest my case! Colour coding and naming the action of strike have nothing to do with it…
He was targeted it there, and its right what you said about COC and Keegan but he won’t get off because he did punch him – he had good reason but try tell the CAC that
They have the ability to set it right and you can only ask…great motivation for the starting 15 either way…
They see what they want to see. Dermo is now a scape goat for the GAA.
I am sick and tired of blinkered officials.
I hear you John…some strange decisions being made all round…
Are you back on the beer never read such horse shit ??
No beer, but thanks for the lucid comment
Why is it that when a dublin fan has valid reason to voice his opinion everyone in 31 county wonderland automatically assumes they are drinking or are drunk. John told it as it was. The truth and nothing but…
Absolutely brilliant synopsis of what really happened. Thank you. But will the GAA look at it ??? No likely because Diarmund is a Dub. Congratulations on your six years of being sober
Cheers Margaret…bring on the replay!
Great piece of analysis !! Well done. This has me fuming for DC. He was not the instigator and yet he, and by extension the whole Dublin team, suffers.
Appalling if that ban is not lifted now!!!
Thanks Donal…think it is too late at this stage but you never know!
This is ridiculous. I can’t actually believe you wasted any time in putting this blog post together.
Firstly his name is ‘Diarmuid’, nor Dermot. Second you seem to purposefully omitted the instance where Connolly struck the player that was UNDERNEATH him. The video you posted clearly shows this and yet, you in your polemics, omit it from your spiel.
If there is any reason for DIARMUID to have his card rescinded it is because there is precedent from the earlier round when Kevin Keane of Mayo had his red card rescinded for something similar. Not because he didn’t strike someone like you seem to suggest, but because striking seems to be okay with the GAA this season for some reason.
I played with Dermot in my time with the Dubs and he is known as “Dermo”, not Diarmuid. So I lengthened his name to Dermot. Thanks for pointing that out to me though.
“You get some leverage, free an arm and manage to power down into his upper body, in an effort to get him to release you.”
I do refer to Dermot striking the Mayo player…I call it as I see it from the footage.
I don’t suggest anything. I respond to the footage I watched.
Very good point about the precedent being set before. Cheers.
Love the way you say slapped everytime Connolly throws one and say punch when COC throws one. Total bias!
🙂 Guilty as charged…I did that subconsciously and would probably change it if I had the time!
God What a Travesty. Dublin smacks an opposition player and gets caught , oh and found guilty . Shocking .i mean how very dare they
Cheers Dave. Everyone is welcome here in the comments section…
Great piece, you should follow up with Phillys head tickle on O’Shea, Johnnys kick massage on DOC and Dermots earlier choke on DOC.
🙂
Why are all the dubs giving out about him missing??? He got two points from play which is a poor score line for a forward. Defenders in some teams would nearly score that for you.
Not sure any opposition in Ireland would rather Dermo playing against them, rather than in the stands…
take gaa out of it and if some one approached you 3 times on O Connell street and dragged u to the ground. Not a jury in Ireland would find u guilty for striking him
The defendant is found not guilty on all counts. Case dismissed.