LIMERICK HURLING MANAGER John Kiely says the disciplinary proceedings against two panelists who were sent home from a recent trip to New York have concluded.
Kiely adds that he is satisfied with the outcome of the investigation, which was conducted internally, and says he will not be issuing a Limerick panel to the public “for a number of weeks.”
The incident in question took place while the Limerick hurlers were in New York for the Super 11s hurling classic tournament. One of the players was involved in an altercation with another man which was allegedly filmed by one of the fellow Limerick panelists.
The footage was then circulated on social media.
It was understood at the time that the two players involved were sent home by Kiely 24 hours before most of the rest of the group flew home to Ireland.
Limerick GAA subsequently published a statement, and Kiely says he has nothing further to add.
“I think we made it clear at the time when we issued our statement that there wasn’t going to be any further comment on the matter. It is an internal matter.
It is like any organisation I am sure, disciplinary matters in a newspaper or a radio station. You are not going to be going out and airing them in the public after. It is like all disciplinary matters they are handled in-house. As far as we are concerned the matter is closed.”
Kiely continued by stating that the disciplinary proceedings have since reached a conclusion, and declined to comment on whether or not the players in question would be involved in Limerick’s upcoming Munster Senior League campaign.
“I won’t be issuing any panel to the public for a number of weeks yet,” says Kiely.
“We have a lot of new players who have come into the panel and we want to give them a chance to settle in.
“We are back training since last Tuesday and 2019 has been concluded and we are looking forward to 2020 with great anticipation.”
Were Limerick denied a late equalising chance? Cillian Buckley got a touch to Darragh O'Donovan's last minute sideline cut pic.twitter.com/Ce2WAQxAoj
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 27, 2019
The Limerick chairman John Cregan recently called on the GAA to introduce the use of a TV match official after his county’s one-point defeat to Kilkenny in this year’s All-Ireland semi-final.
The defending champions were denied a late ’65 in that Croke Park thriller, as Darragh O’Donovan’s sideline cut appeared to be blocked out over the endline by Kilkenny’s Cillian Buckley. But no ’65 was awarded as the Cats prevailed.
Responding to Cregan’s suggestion about bringing in a TV match official, Kiely said:
You don’t want to end up with a soccer VAR where people are walking off the field to look at a screen, nobody wants that. But if there was a mechanism by which we could make a call on the sideline to ask whoever is upstairs looking at these cameras and screens, who can see exactly what has happened and to slow it down.
“To get the correct decision. If it takes 30 seconds, 40 seconds to do that through the fourth official, I think that is a fantastic idea and one that I think all management teams would be very supportive of, in terms of ensuring the correct decisions are found.”
When asked if the GAA could follow the example of tennis and allow for a limited number of calls for the TV match official, Kiely added:
“Absolutely. But we do have the technology this is not something we have to create, we already have these in place. It is just a case of being able to refer to it on matchday as opposed to waiting for the Sunday Game to highlight it when it is too late to do something about it.”
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