We need to talk about Diarmuid

[Farrandeelin]

What did I not recognise? You can clearly see Murphy's hand blocked his face. If he did strike him in the face I would be the first to condemn it.

He did.

It looks like he struck him in the chest. As I said he should have showed him the scoreboard.

[westbound]

What did I not recognise? You can clearly see Murphy's hand blocked his face. If he did strike him in the face I would be the first to condemn it.

He did.

It looks like he struck him in the chest. As I said he should have showed him the scoreboard.

You do know that a strike is a red card offence regardless of what part of the body you strike, right?

In fact attempted striking is a red card offence.

[Il Bomber Destro]

What did I not recognise? You can clearly see Murphy's hand blocked his face. If he did strike him in the face I would be the first to condemn it.

He did.

It looks like he struck him in the chest. As I said he should have showed him the scoreboard.

So he struck him?

[Farrandeelin]

What did I not recognise? You can clearly see Murphy's hand blocked his face. If he did strike him in the face I would be the first to condemn it.

He did.

It looks like he struck him in the chest. As I said he should have showed him the scoreboard.

So he struck him?

Yes. He did. Not in the face as you said earlier.

[Hardy]

Such a crying session about Connolly. Dublin will walk into the All Ireland semi-final. Go and enjoy the summer and learn the lesson.

Exactly. I'm a Dub. DC deserves to be suspended for 12 weeks. Can't see county board appealing this. Time to be move on.

I think you're right. This will be accepted and Dublin will move on. They don't need Connolly until August anyway (if at all), they'll sail through the games up to that. Appealing a decision involving aggression towards an official would send out the wrong message.....not least to officials. Discretion will be the better part of valour here I'd guess.

If he'd been red carded during the game, there would be no question of an appeal for this. Just like the recent Philly McMahon suspension was accepted.

But the way it's been handled leaves a bit of a bad taste in my opinion.

Everyone agrees that the hand on shoulder was minimal contact, but also that it techncially can result in a red card and 12 week ban. It's similar to swearing abuse at an official. And likewise it's up to the official to decide to let it go as heat of moment / no menance, maybe give a verbal warning not to do it again - or to decide that this is serious enough to warrant punishment.

(Incidentally, in my view the finger pointing close to the face was a lot worse, but its the more trivial "hand on shoulder" that's causing the ban.)

Branagan clearly decided immediately that this was "nothing". This is a linesman who has no fear about bringing incidents to a ref's attention (unlike some who try to keep their involvement to a minimum). He's clearly not intimidated by Connolly during the incident (the calmest person on the line by a huge distance!) and hearing Marty Clarke talk about him, he's seems to be a very confident in himself type.

Not long afterwards he called the ref over to get Brendan Murphy his second yellow card for an incident the ref had not seen (he also did similar in the league final).

In my view, Branagan decided this was an incident that did not deserve a card (there have been many similar instances in recent years of a player grabbing a ref to get his attention - pictures easily found of O'Connor, Gooch, Donaghy, McMahon and presumably many more, and the ref letting it go as trivial). But something between the end of the game and the ref's report being finalised changed the mind of Branagan. I think Dublin should (try to) find out the truth about what that was and then decide whether it warrants further appeal.

Hound, "the mind of Branagan" or his opinion of the incident have absolutely no bearing on the decision. The linesman or his opinion have no function in the matter. The only time the linesman's opinion comes into a decision, even one where he himself is assaulted, is if he considers a foul has been committed, whereupon he may call the referee's attention to it.

If he didn't consider it a breach of the rule, he was wrong. But neither that nor the fact that he didn't react as if he felt threatened are material to the determination of whether the rule, as written down, was infringed. It was.

[nrico2006]

What was Keane to do in that situation though?  Murphy is in the process of assaulting him and he is simply defending himself.

As for that video clip, it is not clear if Keane strikes Murphy.

[Farrandeelin]

What was Keane to do in that situation though?  Murphy is in the process of assaulting him and he is simply defending himself.

As for that video clip, it is not clear if Keane strikes Murphy.

He did. His hand landed on Murphy's chest. Mayo were 8 up at that stage. He should have just done nothing. At the time, I blamed Murphy for instigating it though.

[Il Bomber Destro]

What was Keane to do in that situation though?  Murphy is in the process of assaulting him and he is simply defending himself.

As for that video clip, it is not clear if Keane strikes Murphy.

A) push him back maybe
B) not punch him

Keane was an utter idiot there and it's a red card all day long.

[Syferus]

Thread's gone to muck.

[nrico2006]

What was Keane to do in that situation though?  Murphy is in the process of assaulting him and he is simply defending himself.

As for that video clip, it is not clear if Keane strikes Murphy.

He did. His hand landed on Murphy's chest. Mayo were 8 up at that stage. He should have just done nothing. At the time, I blamed Murphy for instigating it though.

Apart from keane pushing him back with his left hand towards the end of the clip, its not clear if he struck him in the earlier incident (unless there is another clip).

[ballinaman]

Thread's gone to muck.

It's bombed alright

[Il Bomber Destro]

What was Keane to do in that situation though?  Murphy is in the process of assaulting him and he is simply defending himself.

As for that video clip, it is not clear if Keane strikes Murphy.

He did. His hand landed on Murphy's chest. Mayo were 8 up at that stage. He should have just done nothing. At the time, I blamed Murphy for instigating it though.

Apart from keane pushing him back with his left hand towards the end of the clip, its not clear if he struck him in the earlier incident (unless there is another clip).

Doesn't matter if he struck him or not, even though he did.

When you attempt to strike or kick it's a red card offence as pointed out to in the rules.

Cut and dry red card really.

[yellowcard]

Bernard Flynn says the officials should get punished for not dealing with the incident involving Diarmuid.




What's Bernard smoking these days ?.

Bernard tries his best to be sensationalist at times but he actually has a point here. The referee has it in his report so presumably they seen it but deemed that it didn't warrant a red card. So they failed to apply the rules to an incident that they had seen.

Let's say a player had punched an opponent and the official didn't take action and send the player off, yet subsequently included it in his report, they would be deemed incompetent. If for talk sake this match had been against stronger opponents and Dublin had won by a point then Carlow could have felt totally aggrieved at it would no doubt have impacted the result. According to what they now have in the report, Dublin gained an unfair advantage by playing out the remainder of the game with 15 men when they should have been down a man if the officials had enforced the rules properly. 

[Hound]

Such a crying session about Connolly. Dublin will walk into the All Ireland semi-final. Go and enjoy the summer and learn the lesson.

Exactly. I'm a Dub. DC deserves to be suspended for 12 weeks. Can't see county board appealing this. Time to be move on.

I think you're right. This will be accepted and Dublin will move on. They don't need Connolly until August anyway (if at all), they'll sail through the games up to that. Appealing a decision involving aggression towards an official would send out the wrong message.....not least to officials. Discretion will be the better part of valour here I'd guess.

If he'd been red carded during the game, there would be no question of an appeal for this. Just like the recent Philly McMahon suspension was accepted.

But the way it's been handled leaves a bit of a bad taste in my opinion.

Everyone agrees that the hand on shoulder was minimal contact, but also that it techncially can result in a red card and 12 week ban. It's similar to swearing abuse at an official. And likewise it's up to the official to decide to let it go as heat of moment / no menance, maybe give a verbal warning not to do it again - or to decide that this is serious enough to warrant punishment.

(Incidentally, in my view the finger pointing close to the face was a lot worse, but its the more trivial "hand on shoulder" that's causing the ban.)

Branagan clearly decided immediately that this was "nothing". This is a linesman who has no fear about bringing incidents to a ref's attention (unlike some who try to keep their involvement to a minimum). He's clearly not intimidated by Connolly during the incident (the calmest person on the line by a huge distance!) and hearing Marty Clarke talk about him, he's seems to be a very confident in himself type.

Not long afterwards he called the ref over to get Brendan Murphy his second yellow card for an incident the ref had not seen (he also did similar in the league final).

In my view, Branagan decided this was an incident that did not deserve a card (there have been many similar instances in recent years of a player grabbing a ref to get his attention - pictures easily found of O'Connor, Gooch, Donaghy, McMahon and presumably many more, and the ref letting it go as trivial). But something between the end of the game and the ref's report being finalised changed the mind of Branagan. I think Dublin should (try to) find out the truth about what that was and then decide whether it warrants further appeal.

Hound, "the mind of Branagan" or his opinion of the incident have absolutely no bearing on the decision. The linesman or his opinion have no function in the matter. The only time the linesman's opinion comes into a decision, even one where he himself is assaulted, is if he considers a foul has been committed, whereupon he may call the referee's attention to it.

If he didn't consider it a breach of the rule, he was wrong. But neither that nor the fact that he didn't react as if he felt threatened are material to the determination of whether the rule, as written down, was infringed. It was.

Okay, I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think it's as black and white and you make out.

It's up to the official to use their judgement to determine whether the rule has been broken. Technically, there is a huge amount more fouls committed per the rule book than the ref calls. Every time a player says "F.. off" to a ref should be a card, but it's rarely produced. Every time there is contact on the field, the ref has to use his judgement to decide if there is a foul.

Kieran Donaghy gave David Coldrick a right pull in an All Ireland final v the Dubs to give him some stick. I remember Cillian O'Connor lightly grabbing a ref by the shoulder to get him to turn around to listen to him in a Dubs match. I've seen pictures in the last 24 hours of Gooch and Philly McMahon touching refs when they shouldn't. All technical 12 week banning offences. But each time the ref used his judgement to say there was no ill-intent. It was heat of the moment, no malice was intended, they just wanted to give their opinion on something.

Branagan was looking out the field at the ref when Connolly nudged him on the shoulder to get him to look at him as he wanted to make his point about the poor call. In my view, Branagan must have considered it to be no more than that. Connolly wanted his attention to complain about the call. Branagan wasn't for turning, but didn't believe Connolly crossed the line.

If Branagan had called the ref over, and told him to give Connolly a red card, then it would be black and white and nobody could complain about the 12 week ban as per the rulebook.

Sometime between the end of the game and the completion of the ref's report, Branagan did change his mind about the altercation - going from a meaningless incidental touch to a minor interference.  I don't think its unreasonable that Dublin asked what changed his mind.

As stevieCW rightly said elsewhere, it was a nonsense for Carlow if he thought at the time it was a red card offence, but didn't tell the ref to issue it. Nobody would expect Carlow to win, but 3 points down and a man up would have changed the whole complexion of the game. Why decide no red card during the game, but very shortly after it change his mind??

[magpie seanie]

Just looked at the rulebook there and the rule says that if the referee after clarification being sought, clarifies that he did not adjudicate on a matter at the time the the relevant CCC can act. Rule 7.3 (f). "Adjudicate" is the key word.