SEAN CAVANAGH ADMITS that he is ‘beginning to feel a bit like Mario Balotelli’ in the wake of fresh criticism from RTÉ pundit Joe Brolly and the Tyrone player insist he does not cheat in Gaelic football.
Brolly slammed Cavanagh on The Sunday Game after their defeat to Monaghan last Sunday and claims the five-time Allstar winner cheats to win frees.
“You had the really dispiriting sight of Sean Cavanagh again,” outlined Brolly. “Running into contact, and as soon as he’s touched, he’s on the ground. It’s very unsavoury. It spoils the manliness of the game.”
Cavanagh was under the spotlight when Darren Hughes received a late black card but television replays suggested that Cavanagh had grabbed Hughes arm and dragged him to the ground.
Brolly was infamously scathing in his criticism of Cavanagh after last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final when he cynically hauled Conor McManus to the ground.
But the 31 year-old Tyrone star yesterday launched an impassioned defence of his play and revealed his wife and family have to had to suffer in the aftermath of these incidents.
“To read an assumption into that I was trying to cheat, it’s really disappointing because I don’t see myself as that type of player.
“I’m beginning to feel a little bit like Mario Balotelli! I find it hard to understand. I remember saying to Darren right after that challenge, ‘Look that was hard on you, you should never have got booked for it.’
“You slow these tackles down to a millisecond, you can read assumptions into it. I genuinely never tried to pull him down. I would never try to cheat to win a free in my life. It’s more that whenever someone is coming at you at speed and you’re falling, it’s like a protection mechanism.
“My wife is a local GP, she’s coming home to me and saying, ‘oh, people from all cross sections of the community are complaining, are talking about you today again’. Your family and friends start telling you stories about people who aren’t that clued in on GAA and are telling them I’m some bad boy of GAA that is always up to these sort of cheating tactics.”
Cavanagh revealed he does not know Brolly and cannot understand why the RTÉ pundit is so personal in his criticism.
“He’s not someone that I would know very much. I would bump into most pundits somewhere along the line but I would never have really met Joe. I don’t understand it.
“It’s annoying because last year it was intentional and I held my hands up and said, ‘yeah, look, grand, I did it for the benefit of my team’. But the one on Sunday, it never even crossed my mind whatsoever (to cheat).
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“I don’t know whether it’s part of the Irish media, whether they’re sometimes happy to go with the negative things than the positive things. I don’t get to watch (TV) an awful lot but I was watching the Sunday Game on Sunday night and at the time I was just thinking to myself, ‘I’d hate to be a footballer from Clare’.
“They’d had a great win over Waterford and they’re playing Kerry this weekend. They probably mentioned them for five seconds and they spent a few minutes on Tyrone and myself.
“It just seemed a wee bit unfair that they were spending more time on the negative things. I would generally prefer to see a positivity about things we’ve done, about Monaghan’s tactics and about some of the other games as well.”
Cavanagh insists he does not condone diving and believes it is an offence that should be punished by referees.
“I completely agree that if anyone is caught trying to fool a referee or win something that is not warranted, they probably should get some sort of penalty. Pat McEnaney when he refereed years ago, he would have frequently booked players for diving. It’s the oldest one in the book.”
