My observations on yesterday's match. I'm saying a lot of different things, so it's unlikely anybody will agree with me on
all of them, but shur anyway.
- Referee Match officials:
- Some are saying that the Clifford sending off was harsh. It wasn't. If you saw that from the northern stand (where there was no TV camera) you'd have seen that it was extremely dangerous. We have a duty to protect our players. The sanction against even once doing something as dangerous during a match has to be a sanction sufficient to disincentivize it - which is a sending off. Now of course I don't believe in making up rules to suit my own opinion, so I refer to the rulebook which says that the penalty against the player for behaving "in any way which is dangerous to an opponent" is to "order the offender off". That's the rule - the linesman and ref were definitely right there.
- I didn't see in real-time the what the Cork player did to be sent off, but looking at the recording later it looked like it wasn't deserved at all.
- In the first half especially, the referee gave frees much easier to Kerry than to Cork. I will be accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses, but in my defense I refer you all to the discussion two years ago here where I argued against it seemed all of you here that the ref decision to black card a Cork player and award a penalty to Kerry was 100% correct by rule, and also that I completely support that rule.
- The new rules:
- This was one of the best football matches I have ever witnessed, and it would not have happened without the new rules. I've been to the intercounty league matches and to club matches. I wouldn't drop a single one of those new rules. Well done to the committee who came up with them, to the GAA for supporting them, to the match officials for enforcing them.
- Cork team and management:
- It's been a privilege to support this team of players and management. I knew full well every single one of them would put their balls on the line, take the risks, and give it everything even when it looked like it was getting away from them. And so they did. These are special people. And the people who come to support them know that.
- Were mistakes made - shur of course they were - that's what happens. To quote: "It is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." Now this is not to say that informed and critical comment is not to be made. This place would be very boring without it - but massive respect for the players and management in the arena so-to-speak, every single one of them.
- Match result:
- Look, there's no sugar coating it - it's very hard to take. When we think of what could have been. But take it we have to. Wallow for a few days, and then look to the group stages with optimism and intent.
