O Leary gets the all clear

[Model Hammer]

The lip service that the GAA pay to "tackling" indiscipline has been horribly exposed again.

They create a body with responsibility for handling violence on the pitch; they sanction the use of video evidence; they allow referees to review incidents with a view to retrospectively taking more serious action.

And then Noel O'Leary gets off scot free.

What a joke we are.

As mentioned earlier, it's all about the kids. I see young lads at U-8 and U-10 mimicking what they see on the telly. What a great opportunity this was to send a message out about what can happen to a player who throws a cowardly punch (i.e. the worst punishment imaginable for a player (short of a jail term)). I would have felt very sorry for Noel O'Leary if he were to miss the All-Ireland Final, but it's a cruel and harsh world out there (sometimes) and rules are rules, except when they're not ....

[Maximus Marillius]

Model I agree entirely...he struck..end of story. Cork broke the rules and got away with it again, why do they cheat so much?

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

What would you like Cork to do here? Petition the GAA to ban O'Leary, and in so doing become the first county ever to agitate for more severe action to be taken against one of their own players, than that taken by the entrusted authorities? Can we keep this to the real world please, the sanctimony is sickening (Paddy Bradley ring any bells?).

[Pull Hard Hes No Relation]

Maximus - what horsesh*t is that "Cork cheat so much". Explain that comment, Cork had nothing to do with O'Leary getting off the Ref said he was happy with hsi decision. If you have a gripe take it out on the Ref not a whole county who have not nothing to do with the incident.

The three Cork players suspended this year did nothing more than what any other county would do to try and clear their names, Clare did the same and Dublin are currently dragging the process out with Peadar Carton (who incidently made one of the worst pulls on the hurling field I ever saw). Derry hardly covered themsleves in glory with the Paddy Bradley affair this year either so take the plank from yoru own eye before looking for the splinter in others.

Until the incident in Thurles this year Cork hadn't a player sent off in championship hurling in almost 40 yrs - hardly the action of cheats. Yes O'Leary struck and under the letetr of the law should of been suspended but don't "blacken" a whole county simply because the Ref made and stuck to his decision or indeed because of Frank's action last year  -doing no more than many other counties have done and continue to do.

[Hardy]

There was a jockey riding at the Bellewstown races one time who was under strict instructions that another horse was to win.  However, the horse got a fright halfway round the back straight, from a banger or something and he bolted. The jockey couldn't hold him and he won, with the intended winner second. The jockey was in a bit of a fix, so he came up with an idea. He went into the stewards' room and lodged an objection against himself, saying he took the other horse's ground at the last fence.

That happened.

[charlie stubbs]

you have to ask why video evidence is used if the refereees arent going to overturn decisions such as this.Complete joke that he wasnt suspended.i see people posting that they wouldnt have liked him to miss the AI final etc which is fair enough,but how are people of kerry/dublin going to feel if he makes a lasp gasp block in the final or scores a late point to win it for Cork.If you cant do the time dont do the crime

[Maximus Marillius]

Well a player punching another player during a match and getting away with it is cheating. There have been different events where Cork players have used violenec only for our frank to get them off...is that not cheating...thay may have interpreted the rules and the weaknesses with the rule book to their advantage, but it is still cheating none the less.

[orangeman]

Great story Hardy !!

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

That happened.

Like I said, the real world... 

[heffo]

whatever way you look at it the fact he got off makes a joke of the the rules, he punched a fellower player and it is seen as alrite!

Very Short memory Tankie do you?
I remember C Whelan getting away with punching a Meath player a few years just as the ball was being thrown in to start the game

He punched Nigel Crawford in 2005 as Crawford was trying to gouge him. If you seen the incident you would have seen that Crawford had his hands all Whelans face.

Moyles gouged Darren Homan midway through the second half of the same game and he required an eye operation.

[heffo]

What gives you the right to call Noel O'Leary a sc**bag? I'd reckon he's a grand fella.

If some of the Dubs did that to Geraghty you'd be cheering or in a very silent minority so save us the feigned outrage.

first of all only a sc**bag would just punch a man in the face when he isn't expecting it.

And secondly you don't see dublin players do this type of stuff!

So by that logic Ciaran Whelan is a sc**bag for elbowing David Mitchell in the face when he wasn't expecting it? Agree or disagree???

O'Leary has been in trouble on the pitch before, of that there is no doubt, and technically should be missing the final. However anyone who wants to call his character into question should take the time to read the article on him from the Tribure last Sunday before they go mouthing off!!!

Mitchell had just creamed Whelan out of it late and as Whelan attempted to get up, Mitchell did a 'Dennis Wise' on it.

[orangeman]

Can someone post the article on Noel O'Leary that was in the Independent or wherever last Sunday please ?

[Hardy]

Crawford was trying to gouge him

Moyles gouged Darren Homan midway through the second half of the same game and he required an eye operation.

Holy sweet Jesus Christ it's getting funnier. What does "gouge" mean? It's usually taken to mean poking a finger in the eye. You must have been very close to the action to take that interpretation from Crawford's action. And Moyles must have fancy footwork indeed if he can gougea man in the eye by standing on his back (an action he should have walked for).

And in any case, what have yoiur two observations got to do with the discussion?

[Sean3]

August 19, 2007

A triumph over adversity;
The loss of a brother, cousin and best friend have only emboldened Noel O'Leary to approach football as life - with fearless resolve

Kieran Shannon


For a moment Noel O'Leary was sure he'd got away with it. It was down in Tralee on a shitty wet Saturday night, Kerry had just beaten them, and towards the end he'd snapped. The Kerry boys had been winding him up all night and then Tomas O Se kicked the ball at him and O'Leary had gone and eyeballed him, lashed out, and picked up his second yellow card for his troubles. As he was walking into the dressing room tunnel, Billy Morgan tapped him on the back and half-grinned, "Well done, Noel!" At that, inwardly, O'Leary smiled too. Someone understood. If anyone could, it was Billy. The sight of that green and gold jersey, the passion, the fury; sure he knew all about it himself.

And then? Well then when they were inside, Morgan closed the door and proceeded to give his wing back, as O'Leary so eloquently puts it, "an unmerciful fecking". In front of everyone. He shakes his head and grimaces bashfully at the memory, thought and accusation. Too fiery and volatile - even by Morgan standards. "But he was dead right too," says O'Leary. "I was a bit mad that night. A rush of blood to the head."

Admit it. It's how you know him, perceive him. There mightn't be a better attacking wing-back left in this year's championship or anyone on the Cork team more adept at playing that ball into Michael Cussen, but to you, he's that serial yellow-carder who keeps getting into scrapes. He'll probably take up Geraghty today and, well, it's hard to see both of them lasting the distance. But, as Dan might say, if you don't know him, don't judge him.

He's from a place called Cill na Martra, the second smallest parish in the biggest county in Ireland, a few miles outside Macroom, off the road to Ballyvourney, but as a kid he developed a passion for west Cork football and west Cork footballers more than 50 miles down the road. There was Castlehaven and Tompkins and Cahalane. And even though they were junior, there was Urhan and Ciaran O'Sullivan too. He remembers going with his father Donal as a 12-year-old to see them play Midleton in a county junior championship replay in 1992 in Ballingeary.

"I'll never forget it. The first day Ciaran was awesome. The second day he was having a brilliant game again when one of the Midleton lads turned round and made shit of his nose. Ciaran was down for three or four minutes, blood pissing out of his nose. Next thing, he gets up, the ball comes in and Ciaran grabs it underneath his own goalpost, goes straight up the centre of the field and shoes the ball straight on the '45 and splits the posts. My father turns round to me and says, 'That man will be playing for Cork next year.'" And at that, his son vowed that's how he'd play for Cork too. Like Cahalane, like Ciaran. Blood and bandages, boy.

And that's how he played for them as a minor. With passion. Raw passion at times but passion, and when the Cork senior hurlers were presented with their 2000 Munster medals the same night as O'Leary and his colleagues were presented with their All-Ireland minor football medals, Diarmuid O'Sullivan, a two-time All Star even then, made a point of going over to O'Leary to tell him how much he loved the way he played the game. A year later they were teammates winning an All-Ireland junior medal together, and a year later, on the senior panel, winning a Munster football championship together. O'Leary had to wait until he was 21 to break onto the starting 15 though. When he did, he did with intent.

"I thought, 'Feck it, a tougher attitude to this setup would be no harm at all. We'll try not to take any prisoners if we can.' I suppose I went a bit bald-headed into it though. Did a lot of stupid things."

Whatever about doing anything stupid, O'Leary managed to do something unique in that 2003 league campaign, picking up a yellow card in each of Cork's seven league games, and just for good measure, picking up two in the last game against Tyrone. But over the years he'd like to think he's tempered down that temper. He's no longer the wild buck of 2003, though, he'll admit, some sort of red mist does seem to descend upon him when he encounters that green and gold.

And on days like that, he's reminded it's only a game, that there's more to life. And he'll agree. Yeah, it's a game, there's more to life, but what you must understand it's that game which has helped him get through the life he's had.

The first to go was Mark. They were cousins but more like twins; the same age, the same humour who'd "more or less lived with each other; him living up in our place or me down in theirs". Then, in January of '99, Mark and his girlfriend broke up and all of a sudden he was dead. Suicide.

"It was an awful shock at the time. Because nothing like that had ever happened to us before. But that was my first year with the Cork minors and the football was a great thing to have. It gave me something to turn back to."

O'Leary and Cork would win that year's Munster final, inspired by a magical display from another dynamic wing back called Tom Kenny, but a few weeks before the following year's Munster final, tragedy struck again. This time it was Benny, his best friend.

"Benny," he smiles, "Benny was a gas man. Strange, he had no interest in football but we had a bit of an old business going there. We bought a quad-bike between us, spraying weeds and spreading manure on farms for farmers. A couple of weeks before we played Kerry, there were about 13 or 14 of us out the back at home. Benny was spinning around on the bike. And feck it, it was a case of the two of us getting too used to that bike; we'd wear no helmets or anything like that, you know. And sure, whatever way he went across this little slope in the field, didn't the bike turn and fall on top of him.

"At the start we were saying to ourselves, 'This man is going to hop up now any second', because he was a bit of a joker, like. But we went over, and Jesus, when we looked at him he had gone blue in the face. Myself and my brother Ciaran tried to clear his mouth but it was no good." By the time the ambulance had hit Macroom, Benny was gone.

Again football offered some measure of solace and that summer Cork went on to claim Munster and then the All Ireland. O'Leary's eyes light up at the memory of it and old teammates. Some of them you've heard of: Masters and McMahon, the latter of whom will play with him in Croke Park today; Conrad Murphy, who was the best of the lot of them; Kieran 'Hero' Murphy from Erins Own. But then there were others who you mightn't have heard of. Paul Deane, Dinny O'Hare; "maybe not the most skilful but hard men and great lads as well." Only in the last year or two with the seniors, has he experienced a team chemistry and bond like the boys of that summer enjoyed. It was the time of their lives and should have been the year of their lives, but before 2000 was out it had been the worst of O'Leary's.

He'll never forget the game that was on the box that day: Glenflesk and Nemo in the Munster club final, and himself and the father watching Moynihan and Johnny Crowley trying to win it nearly on their own. But as the day and game went on, his mother was becoming increasingly anxious. Ciaran, Noel's 17-year-old brother, had yet to come home. There was no word from him or of him. Noel and his younger brother, Donal Og, told her to relax, reminding her that it wouldn't be the first time he'd have stayed over at a friend's. After the game was over though, there was still no word. They'd phoned Ciaran's girlfriend who he'd visited the previous night and she'd said he'd gone home.

"The father was saying then, 'God, maybe he was drunk coming home and fell somewhere. Donal Og, go into the shed and get our wellingtons and we'll go to the fields and look for him.'"

Donal Og went into the shed only to find Ciaran already there. Same story as Mark. Seventeen. Just finished with the girlfriend. Gone.

"Definitely what happened to Benny was a big part of it. Ciaran was there when it happened and he used to get upset about it. He'd always be on about it at home. But in saying that, you wouldn't have taken much notice of it. I mean, it was natural enough he was upset about it.

"I think it was a pure spur-of-the-moment thing. It and drink. In most of these cases that's what it is; a spur-of-the-moment decision brought on by the drink. Looking back, Ciaran wouldn't have been the best to take drink. He was only 17, a bit of a wild lad but a good lad, but you could see that he used to get upset after drink."

That's why he'd tell anyone: know the people who don't react well to it. Be there to tell them the one that's one too many, especially when that one might be the first. Be there to say hang on, everybody hurts, but it passes. It's maybe not the normal message or cause advocated by a GAA player, but O'Leary feels strongly about this. So do his younger brothers, who hardly drink at all.

"A lot of people mightn't like talking about this, shy away from talking about it, but it's happening every day in other homes. People might learn from it. I have no problem talking whatsoever about it. Or Benny or Mark. It was an unbelievable run for us at the time, but it happened. It's a big part of who I am."

There's little O'Leary isn't upfront about. At times he might sound all bashful like Paidi O Se just like he plays like a young Paidi O Se but the 'Yerrah' response is not for him. There is a refreshing honesty as well as affability about him. In the tree surgery business he set up a few years ago, beating around the bush is kept to a minimum. It's the same in conversation. He cuts through the bullshit.

The Cork under 21 team management during what he now calls the lost years, for instance. "It was the worst set-up I've ever seen. Selectors turning up late; poor locations, no tactics before games, no buzz in the camp. For them three years we didn't even threaten to win an All Ireland when we had the players to do it. In 2003 we ended up losing to Waterford. Rightly so. That was the game they parachuted Setanta (O hAilpin) and (John) Gardiner in for before the (senior All-Ireland) hurling final. No disrespect to the two lads but they never trained with us that year while they were taking the places of fellas who'd trained all year. Sure that's not a team."

He'll accept his discipline could be better too. Okay, he doesn't think he should have been suspended for the Louth game this year, because as he showed the guys in Croke Park, that time in the Munster final Paul Galvin was holding and twisting his ankle - "I'm not saying he was doing it intentionally" - and O'Leary was only trying to wriggle his way free. Then you push him on it.

"That was all though, Noel. You were just trying to get him off you."

"That's right."

"Genuinely, Noel."

He smiles. "Well, maybe there was a slight bit of a kickout too."

He'll be straight up about the support of the current senior team as well, or lack of it, to be precise. Last week Waterford lost their fourth All-Ireland semi-final in the Justin McCarthy era and a country, let alone, county, nearly went into mourning. Lose today and the Cork footballers will likewise have lost four semi-finals in six years, and yet the masses on Leeside will be indifferent to their plight. O'Leary is close friends with some of the hurlers, especially O'Sullivan, but as much as he wishes them well, at times he can't help but be envious of them.

"It's unbelievably disappointing, our support, even if we're long over it now. The hurlers get caught in a sticky situation and are down three points and the crowd roars them on which is a huge help to a team. We go three down and people just turn their asses to us. That's when we need them. There's absolutely no doubt about it, if we win this All Ireland, it'll be for this panel of players and management team. I honestly think there's only about two or three hundred genuine Cork football supporters out there."

He'd love to win it for Morgan ("His head for the game is unbelievable. And his passion. Even watching him giving speeches and seeing the veins start to pop; you'd be proud to play for a man like him"). For old teammates like Ciaran O'Sullivan who was probably as good as Moynihan but never seen as such because he never won that Celtic Cross. But as he says, mostly for the men around him each night in training. That's what it's about.

Right now, they're near and yet so far. They're only one game away from a final but the way they've been playing they seem a lot further away than that. Maybe the hurling snobs have a point; the team hasn't played with any flair; it's yet to cast off its inhibitions. He'll admit that. But the 2000 minors should have lost in the first round to Clare. They went on and won the All Ireland. That team and this team have a lot in common. This crowd could go all the way too.

"Look, there's no doubt that if we play like we did the last day against Sligo there's no hope for us against Meath. They're playing a nice brand of football and seem to be able to find space all the time while we seem to be getting clogged up an awful lot. But we know the football we're capable of and the football we've played. It's going to come out some time again, hopefully on Sunday. (James) Masters is going to be a loss alright but the man himself, pure gentleman, said it openly in the papers that his injury gives lads like (Daniel) Goulding a chance and they might burn up Croke Park."

He'll feel for Masters today. This is about the only year O'Leary himself has been free of injury. A week after his championship debut against Limerick in 2003, his old buddy Diarmuid O'Sullivan gave him a clatter in a county championship game. O'Leary played on but he had taken the Ciaran O'Sullivan spirit to extremes - his ribs had been cracked, something that kept him out of the qualifier defeat to Roscommon. The following year in Killarney his medial ligament gave way; the following year against the old enemy in Croke Park himself and Conor McCarthy collided and he had to be taken off, and then last year, a viral infection from a very costly half-hour of sunbathing in La Manga kept him out of the starting line-up for the summer.

But he kept coming back, kept bouncing back up, kept walking on.

He knows no other way.

[heffo]

Crawford was trying to gouge him

Moyles gouged Darren Homan midway through the second half of the same game and he required an eye operation.

Holy sweet Jesus Christ it's getting funnier. What does "gouge" mean? It's usually taken to mean poking a finger in the eye. You must have been very close to the action to take that interpretation from Crawford's action. And Moyles must have fancy footwork indeed if he can gougea man in the eye by standing on his back (an action he should have walked for).

And in any case, what have yoiur two observations got to do with the discussion?

Yeah poking a finger in one's eye - I was at the game - Cusack halfway line lower - Crawford had his hands all over Whelans face - you could also see it clearly on the tv replay.

Moyles should indeed have walked for the stamp, but I can't see what that has to do with Moyles poking his finger in Homans eye - this is a matter of record, so maybe you should check your facts.

WRT what his has to with the discussion, Whelan was brought into the discussion and I put his actions in context.