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10 GAA controversies we won't forget from this summer

We have a look at the biggest talking points from an eventful year in the GAA world.

FROM THE SKY deal to the black card and the Mayo managerial debacle, the most controversial moments in the GAA world this year are recounted.

The Nash Rule is introduced mid-season

Stephen O'Keeffe saves a penalty Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

The GAA was forced to clarify the penalty rule in hurling after Stephen O’Keefe charged off his line to block Anthony Nash’s effort from close range in June. O’Keefe was left with a nasty looking bruise on his leg after he raced off his line to prevent Nash from scoring one of his trademark penalties in Munster SHC clash between Cork and Waterford.

The Management Committee of the GAA moved to end the confusion over the interpretation of the rule, by ruling that a player must strike the ball outside the 20 metre line when taking a penalty. They also ruled that defenders may not move towards he free-taker until after the ball had been struck.

stephen o'keefe clubcoloursIE / Twitter clubcoloursIE / Twitter / Twitter

The debate ran right through the summer as, while Patrick Horgan and Joe Canning dispatched the first couple of penalties under the new ruling, no player managed to score from the 20m line for the rest of the championship.

Tippereary were famous victims of the rule change when Seamus Callanan and John O’Dwyer both missed penalties in the All-Ireland final, while Callanan opted to tap his penalty over the bar in the replay.

The Black card debates

Mickey Harte confronts referee Eddie Kinsella at the end of the game Donall Farmer / INPHO Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO

One of the biggest talking points heading into the 2014 campaign was the introduction of the black card to gaelic football in a bid to stamp out cynical play. It was widely regarded as a good move for the game, but its application became the problem.

Mickey Harte sparked fierce debate back in May when he hit out at David Coldrick for handing out a black card to Tyrone goalkeeper Niall Morgan while failing to give Conor Maginn the same punishment earlier after he conceded a first half penalty.

Harte claimed that Coldrick’s interpretation “didn’t remotely resemble the rules we used in the National League” and voiced his opposition to the card.

Earlier today the GAA released figures to show that the black card has generally improved the game – with scoring up and cards down since its’ introduction.

Jim McGuinness’s Abramovich jibe

Jim McGuinness with his son Jim Jr Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

In the weeks leading up to Donegal’s All-Ireland semi-final against the Dubs, Jim McGuinness ramped up the pre-match mind games by claiming that Dublin’s perceived advantage over the rest of the leading contenders for the Sam Maguire was “a worry”.

He even went as far as comparing their rise to prominence with Chelsea’s after Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich took control of the club.

“I think the divide is becoming bigger and bigger. Dublin are way out in front of everyone.

“I suppose if we were having this conversation 10 years ago you’d have said Kerry was the team with all the resources, really looked after players with jobs, Kerry Group supporting them and that type of thing.

“It’s like Abramovich going into the Premier League. It’s a different ball game.

“The level they’ve taken sports science to and nutrition, strength and conditioning, the amount of coaches they have; it’s a professional set up in every sense. They’re getting the benefits of that now.”

Ironically, Donegal went on at least five training camps in 2014 – a week in Portugal, twice to the Johnston House resort and on trips to Mullingar Park Hotel and Lough Erne Gold Resort.

The Cork-Mayo time keeping drama

Cork players surround referee Cormac Reilly Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

Referee Cormac Reilly enraged Cork by telling them they had “a minute or so left” right before Colm O’Neill pointed a late free and the final whistle sounded.

O’Neill tapped over the injury-time free in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Mayo, to cut the gap to a single point rather than try and engineer a match-winning goal. The Rebels forward was under the impression that they would have time for one final play, but Reilly deemed time to be up and found himself surrounded by angry Cork players immediately afterwards.

The incident understandably sparked a debate on taking the timekeeping out of the referees hands, given the that Mayo were the victims of a similar incident in the All-Ireland final last year.

Cork boss Brian Cuthbert refused to blame Reilly for Cork’s exit from the championship.

“Look you’re going to have calls for and against you, some days they go with you, some days they don’t,” he said.

“We’re certainly not looking at the referee as to why we’re not going on to the semi-final”

The Kerry-Mayo show packs up and heads to Limerick

Kerry and Mayo supporters arrive early Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

The fixing of the Kerry-Mayo replay to the Gaelic Grounds drew some heavy criticism within the GAA world. The sides played out a thrilling 1-16 each draw in Croke Park but the second game was consigned to Limerick the following Saturday because of an American Football Colleges game that was due to take place in GAA HQ the same day.

“It’s a terrible shame that the Gaels of Ireland, who own this ground, can’t come here next week to watch another All-Ireland semi-final,” said Joe Brolly in the RTÉ studios after the drawn game in Croke Park.

“It’s our ground and instead there’s American Football being played here. Sooner or later, the pursuit of money is going to have to give way to communitarian ideals which are what the GAA is supposed to be founded on.

“Sooner or later we’re going to have to make a decision, are we a community organisation owned by the people of Ireland, or are we just going to sell ourselves to the highest bidder?”

Mayo manager James Horan added: “It doesn’t make any sense to me, 5pm in Limerick. I think it’s bizarre. But we will play wherever. Once we are on a football field, we are on a football field. But it doesn’t make any sense.”

The Sky deal polarizes opinion

Rachel Wyse, Ollie Canning, Brian Carney and Peter Canavan Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

When the GAA agreed a three-year broadcasting contract with Sky Sports to air GAA, handing them exclusive rights to 14 championship games in 2014, it split the nation.

It was the first time that championship games were to be broadcast on anything other than free-to-air TV and while many players and fans welcomed the news as a progressive step, others questioned the motives behind it.

GAA Director General Pauric Duffy said that the aim of the deal was partly to “accessible to Irish people abroad.”

The Gaelic Players Association “broadly welcomed” the deal while GAA President Liam O’Neill said that he had “worried about it every day” since it appeared on the table.

Elsewhere Dublin U21 footballer Conor McHugh saw the benefits of the move for inter-county players.

A Millward Brown poll found that over half of the public felt the GAA shouldn’t have got into bed with Sky, with the main opposition in the over-55 bracket, where 62% were opposed.

Garth Brooks concerts are cancelled

Fans get a look at a cardboard cutout of Garth Brooks Morgan Treacy / INPHO Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO

The Garth Brooks concert drama rumbled on throughout the summer before the planned concerts, that were estimated to earn the Irish economy €50m, were cancelled.

The five concerts were due to take place in Croke Park before the local residents protested in opposition to them taking place. A judicial review block the staging of the five concerts, instead allowing for a maximum of three.

The saga took another twist when Brooks announced he would stage five concerts or none, and eventually announced he was cancelling all his Croke Park gigs with “great regret”.

More than 400,000 ticket holders were left dissapointed, while the GAA lost out on a potentially lucrative arrangement.

Armagh’s media ban

Paul Grimley refuses to talk to Newstalk's Colm Parkinson after the game Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

Paul Grimley took exception to the ‘disrespectful manner by which Armagh were treated and imposed a media ban upon the senior county panel.

Grimley felt a media campaign began against his team in the aftermath of their Ulster SFC win over Cavan, where a pre-match brawl took most of the limelight. He also felt the media plotted to cause a rift between himself and his management team and felt disrespected with Peter McDonnell wasn’t interviewed at a media event.

“We sent Peter McDonnell, he was there for two-and-a-half hours and no-one thought it was worth their while interviewing him,” he told RTÉ Radio 1′s Saturday Sport after their season ended.

“So he was rightly upset about it and he came back and said; ‘look if no-one cares about what we have to say then we won’t be saying anything to anybody’.”

“I wasn’t happy with the way the Cavan game was reported. I felt our team lined out in an orderly fashion and did nothing wrong. In fact, they defended themselves.

“Some of the reports afterwards were saying children had to run for cover and that we targeted players on the Cavan team, and that people were verbally abused and this sort of thing. It got very out of hand.

“The media took on a different side to it and I though it was a nastier side, camouflaging insults, and the reason was because we weren’t playing their game.

“They were calling us childish, ignorant, they called our county board spineless. They were also trying, in the way they reported things, to cause a wee bit of a problem within the camp between me and Kieran [McGeeney] or vice versa” he said.

“We are amateurs and really there is no particular professional training in the media for us. It probably was a lot of stubbornness on my part but there was a lot that I didn’t like. They (the media) were a bit cheeky at times and I thought, we’ll teach them a bit of manners here.”

Martin McHugh and the ‘two-trick pony’

Martin McHugh Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO

Ex-Donegal footballer Martin McHugh caused widespread hysteria with comments he made on the Sunday Game, when he described Kerry’s Colm Cooper as a “two-trick pony.”

JoeHarrington / YouTube

Both Kevin McStay and Dermot Early were lavishing praise on James O’Donoghue for his fine form when McHugh went one step further and suggested that the Killarney Legion forward was a far better footballer than Cooper.

It sparked a widespread reaction online, with McHugh eventually rowing back on his comments in his Irish Daily Star column.

“I brought up Cooper but made a mistake by using the phrase ‘two trick pony’to describe the Dr Crokes man,” he wrote.

“It’s a clumsy phrase, no doubt about it, and one that doesn’t stand up. But live television is unforgiving. You say something and it’s out there.”

The Mayo manager debacle

Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes 7/5/2006 Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO

Mayo’s county board was left red-faced after the mishandling of the appointment process of James Horan’s successor. Unrest in Mayo GAA circles emerged after Gerry Bourke,, a Mayo board executive, resigned over the manner of the appointment of Noel Connelly and Pat Holmes as joint-managers for the senior football team.

Chairman Paddy McNicholas came under fire for apparently failing to follow an agreed process for the appointment. Liam McHale, who was part of a managerial ticket with the front-runner Kevin McStay, told Newstalk that their proposal was deemed “too radical” for the county board’s liking.

It’s still unclear whether interviews actually took place but the farcical nature of the process was highlighted when McHale added that McNicholas asked McStay to come in for an interview after Connelly and Holmes were already appointed.

“I drove home from St. Brigid’s training at about 5 o’clock and Kevin rang me to say he had got a call from Paddy McNicholas (Mayo county board chairman) again trying to arrange an interview with him for Tuesday,” McHale said.

“Kevin said, ‘Paddy let me get this clear, you want me to go for an interview for a job that’s already gone?’

“Kevin felt that Paddy was trying to influence him into stating that he was going to pull out and obviously that would clear the way for Noel and Pat to come in.”

Honourable mentions: Cuthbert calls Mayo “street-wise”, Cody on Barry Kelly, Lee Keegan sending off & rebuttal, Cormac Reilly’s refereeing display in the Kerry-Mayo replay, Davy Fitz and the ‘dark forces’
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