This game was a powder keg waiting to explode

 
IN the sleepy month of January as the GAA world shakes off the winter cobwebs, the All-Ireland club intermediate and junior semi-finals are games to be welcomed.

Unlike the pre-season provincial competitions where experimentation is the theme, the club matches on the second last Sunday of the first month of the year are a serious business. The passion displayed by players and supporters is rooted in the significance of being only sixty minutes away from a momentous appearance in Croke Park.

For that reason I have always particularly enjoyed covering those competitions. The games always have a huge resonance and never fail to produce a brilliant narrative. As I walked towards O’Moore Park in Portlaoise just after 1pm last Sunday for the All-Ireland football semi-final double-header, there was already a great sense of anticipation amongst the supporters present. The contingents from Dromid Pearses, down in South Kerry, and Derrytresk, flush on the Tyrone border with Armagh, were growing expectant as their junior semi-final approached. The early arrivals from the Mid Kerry villages of Milltown and Castlemaine, and the Derry club Craigbane in the foothills of the Sperrin Mountains, settled down for the curtain-raiser and counted down the minutes until their intermediate showdown.

The junior match began in typical fashion. It was tight and edgy. That was nothing unusual about that as a strong wind, a soft pitch, the natural rustiness after a long layoff since provincial campaigns and the nerves that accompany a mammoth occasion, are all contributory factors. Derrytresk made the early running to lead 0-2 to 0-0 and then Dromid Pearses settled into a groove as they responded strongly to go 0-4 to 0-2 ahead.

What happened next has been well-documented. The course of the match changed irrevocably when a brawl erupted before half-time on the sideline. The subsequent release of video footage has highlighted the violence that ensued but at the time it was impossible from my vantage point in the press box to identify any players involved. The fighting spread very quickly and several supporters in front of me stood up to look at the incident which obstructed my view. What was extremely noticeable though was the speed at which the substitutes of the Derrytresk team vaulted over the barrier to become involved.

The extent of the head injury that Dromid Pearses midfielder Thomas Curran received during the brawl did not become clear until afterwards as he played on for the closing minutes of the first-half. His withdrawal at half-time did appear strange considering how impressive he had been and the presumption was that he had picked up an injury. The details of how severely disorientated he was in the dressing-room at the break made for grim listening when Dromid Pearses manager Michael Anthony O’Connell spoke after the game.

It was immediately apparent after the brawl that the atmosphere had become tense around the stadium. The catcalls, booing and emotive gesturing by supporters as the teams left the pitch at half-time heightened that sense of tension. The second-half was an unpleasant affair – not because there was a spate of violent incidents on the pitch – but more because of the growing feeling that this game was a powder keg waiting to explode. That suspicion was confirmed at the final whistle when another altercation took place between Derrytresk supporters and Dromid Pearses players.

Again it was difficult to identify players but a couple of things were clear.

Firstly, the majority of the Derrytresk supporters were focused on celebrating their team’s victory and it was a minority that confronted players on the Dromid Pearses team.

Secondly, the Dromid Pearses team looked simply intent on getting off the pitch and retreating to the sanctuary of their dressing-room as they were visibly devastated at having been defeated. I remember seeing Declan O’Sullivan, who had displayed admirable restraint during the game in the face of blatant tactics of intimidation, raising his arms aloft and attempting to force his way through the crowd of people in the tunnel.

It’s important to stress that Derrytresk were the better team in last Sunday’s clash. The losses of Curran through injury and Denis ‘Shine’ O’Sullivan through a sending-off did hit Dromid Pearses hard as both are key players. But Derrytresk were a well-organised side with strong individual players in former All-Ireland minor winner Cathal O’Neill at centre-back, the speedster Joseph McKee at centre-forward and their composed corner-forward Niall Gavin. Once McKee found the net, a Derrytresk victory looked inevitable. The Dromid Pearses management and supporters that I spoke to after had no qualms in admitting that they were defeated by a superior side.

In the aftermath of the game, I have been asked by several different individuals to quantify how serious the incidents of indiscipline were. Views have been put to me that hysteria has seen the level of violence exaggerated, that the lack of stewarding and fencing contributed to the unsavoury incidents, that the performance of the referee contributed to the chaos and that this latest incident highlights how endemic indiscipline has become in the GAA.

Those are all areas for debate. I feel the best way to sum up the match was that it was not particularly violent but was characterised by two shocking incidents whereby supporters from one team encroached onto the pitch to physically confront players of the opposition team.

That represents to me the most worrying development. GAA players take to the field every week steeling themselves for physical challenges with their opponents. The last thing they expect to have to do is face a physical attack from supporters and if this is the trend that is emerging, then there it is a grave challenge for the GAA to address.

GAA disciplinary chiefs may not be familiar with the name Ronni Noervig yet his own pitch invasion tale is salient in this instance. In June 2007, the Danish 33 year-old ran onto the pitch towards the end of a Euro 2008 qualifier between Denmark and Sweden and physically assaulted the referee.

 

A fortnight ago he was ordered to pay 250,000 to the Danish Football Federation for the offence and while that was subsequently reduced last Friday to 33,600, it still highlights the seriousness of how Noervig’s actions were regarded. The fact that he was dubbed ‘The Football Idiot’ by the Danish media is indicative of the light in which is behaviour was viewed.

What options the GAA takes and what punishment it metes out after last Sunday’s incident in Portlaoise remains to be seen. But supporters running onto the pitch to attack players cannot be seen as acceptable. That much at least must be made clear.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/gzv5wLosLfQ/post.aspx

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