Leinster SFC

[Syferus]

Teams will no longer fear them as much thanks to their chosen style of play.

They can decide to fear them or not but they will sleepwalk through every team in the country to a third title in a row.

I presume you have deleted your NFL Final prediction from your little mindeen

Winning league titles really set us up for long summers.

[Captain Obvious]

Teams will no longer fear them as much thanks to their chosen style of play.

The fear thing was a lot to do with media hype of labeling Dublin as some all out attacking force of nature. It's a Jim Gavin style of play that has delivered many All Irelands. The 2009/10 Dublin U21s played the same way under Gavin e.g their main strength and focus is on defence.

[Zulu]

Teams will no longer fear them as much thanks to their chosen style of play.

They can decide to fear them or not but they will sleepwalk through every team in the country to a third title in a row.

I presume you have deleted your NFL Final prediction from your little mindeen

Winning league titles really set us up for long summers.

What league titles? You also predicted Kerry's demise shortly before the won the All Ireland.

[Syferus]

Teams will no longer fear them as much thanks to their chosen style of play.

They can decide to fear them or not but they will sleepwalk through every team in the country to a third title in a row.

I presume you have deleted your NFL Final prediction from your little mindeen

Winning league titles really set us up for long summers.

What league titles? You also predicted Kerry's demise shortly before the won the All Ireland.

Connolly's going to be banned.

[Zulu]

The contact wasn't aggressive so a ban wouldn't be appropriate IMO. I don't know what Evan did so maybe his ban isn't appropriate either but Connolly get a 3 month ban for what he did would be ridiculous. Did Tommy Walsh get a ban for splitting a ref?

Don't think there is anything in the rules about it having to be particularity aggressive. I think it says any "minor inteference" is a minimum 12 week ban.

That's correct but as I said already you could use that to ban a guy even if he was just tapping a ref on the shoulder to make him aware of something. The rules in GAA are worded so vaguely that you can get away with most things if you are willing to challenge it.

That's a completely different context.

I know, but lads are saying by the letter of the law and if we did that then my example would also be a 12 week ban.

[Zulu]

Seeing the replay there it was a bit more aggressive than I thought, there was a push to be fair. Still don't think that warrants a 12 week suspension but Connolly was silly to do what he did.

Aggressively pushing an official would warrant at least a 12 week ban in probably every sport in the world.

Probably, but 12 weeks isn't a full season in most sports. If Connolly gets 12 weeks now the only IC game he could play in for the rest of 2017 would be the All Ireland final. I think that's overly harsh for what he did.

I wouldn't be sure about the "full season" thing. Had he done it in a league match in March, he'd be back. Referees being pushed is something that we definitely don't want in our games and hefty sanctions must be applied to deter people from doing it. I have no sympathy for anyone who acts like that towards a ref. Its a scummy act.

It was hardly a 'scummy act' in fairness. It is a full season when we only view the championship as important.

[mrdeeds]

The contact wasn't aggressive so a ban wouldn't be appropriate IMO. I don't know what Evan did so maybe his ban isn't appropriate either but Connolly get a 3 month ban for what he did would be ridiculous. Did Tommy Walsh get a ban for splitting a ref?

Don't think there is anything in the rules about it having to be particularity aggressive. I think it says any "minor inteference" is a minimum 12 week ban.

That's correct but as I said already you could use that to ban a guy even if he was just tapping a ref on the shoulder to make him aware of something. The rules in GAA are worded so vaguely that you can get away with most things if you are willing to challenge it.

That's a completely different context.

I know, but lads are saying by the letter of the law and if we did that then my example would also be a 12 week ban.

Letter of the law uses word interference. Your example would not be within this context.

[Zulu]

Seeing the replay there it was a bit more aggressive than I thought, there was a push to be fair. Still don't think that warrants a 12 week suspension but Connolly was silly to do what he did.

Aggressively pushing an official would warrant at least a 12 week ban in probably every sport in the world.

Probably, but 12 weeks isn't a full season in most sports. If Connolly gets 12 weeks now the only IC game he could play in for the rest of 2017 would be the All Ireland final. I think that's overly harsh for what he did.

I wouldn't be sure about the "full season" thing. Had he done it in a league match in March, he'd be back. Referees being pushed is something that we definitely don't want in our games and hefty sanctions must be applied to deter people from doing it. I have no sympathy for anyone who acts like that towards a ref. Its a scummy act.

It was hardly a 'scummy act' in fairness. It is a full season when we only view the championship as important.

By that logic, it is really 2 thirds of a season for Dublin. The only important games he'll miss are the quarters & semis.
Aggressively pushing an official is a scummy act for me.

The championship surely includes the provincial championship so it's far more than two thirds. I wouldn't view it as aggressively interferring but I'd accept it's borderline. However, the only reason the punishment for touching a referee is as harsh as it is, is to discourage assaulting them. I don't think the linesman was in fear for his safety or anything. Now I know I'm being a bit pedantic here but I just don't think you could view that and say a guy deserves to miss 4 or 5 of the only important games he plays in a year. If he wasn't a Dublin player you could say he won't play IC football again until January 2018. I don't think his minor physical contact merits that type of punishment.

[Zulu]

The contact wasn't aggressive so a ban wouldn't be appropriate IMO. I don't know what Evan did so maybe his ban isn't appropriate either but Connolly get a 3 month ban for what he did would be ridiculous. Did Tommy Walsh get a ban for splitting a ref?

Don't think there is anything in the rules about it having to be particularity aggressive. I think it says any "minor inteference" is a minimum 12 week ban.

That's correct but as I said already you could use that to ban a guy even if he was just tapping a ref on the shoulder to make him aware of something. The rules in GAA are worded so vaguely that you can get away with most things if you are willing to challenge it.

That's a completely different context.

I know, but lads are saying by the letter of the law and if we did that then my example would also be a 12 week ban.

Letter of the law uses word interference. Your example would not be within this context.

Why not? Did Tommy Walsh's actions come under interference? What if a ref was running away from you and you lightly pulled him back to say something or aggressively pulled him back to show a seriously injured player? What is interference?

[AZOffaly]

You are making some strange points here Zulu. Did Paul Galvin have that ref fearing for his safety when he slapped the notebook? You can't allow people to go pushing and shoving linesmen and refs around the place. Connolly was clearly irate and pushed the linesman. It's a no brainer.

[Zulu]

Seeing the replay there it was a bit more aggressive than I thought, there was a push to be fair. Still don't think that warrants a 12 week suspension but Connolly was silly to do what he did.

Aggressively pushing an official would warrant at least a 12 week ban in probably every sport in the world.

Probably, but 12 weeks isn't a full season in most sports. If Connolly gets 12 weeks now the only IC game he could play in for the rest of 2017 would be the All Ireland final. I think that's overly harsh for what he did.

I wouldn't be sure about the "full season" thing. Had he done it in a league match in March, he'd be back. Referees being pushed is something that we definitely don't want in our games and hefty sanctions must be applied to deter people from doing it. I have no sympathy for anyone who acts like that towards a ref. Its a scummy act.

It was hardly a 'scummy act' in fairness. It is a full season when we only view the championship as important.

By that logic, it is really 2 thirds of a season for Dublin. The only important games he'll miss are the quarters & semis.
Aggressively pushing an official is a scummy act for me.

The championship surely includes the provincial championship so it's far more than two thirds. I wouldn't view it as aggressively interferring but I'd accept it's borderline. However, the only reason the punishment for touching a referee is as harsh as it is, is to discourage assaulting them. I don't think the linesman was in fear for his safety or anything. Now I know I'm being a bit pedantic here but I just don't think you could view that and say a guy deserves to miss 4 or 5 of the only important games he plays in a year. If he wasn't a Dublin player you could say he won't play IC football again until January 2018. I don't think his minor physical contact merits that type of punishment.

A season surely includes the league so it's far less than two thirds really.
You can't have it both ways.

I think 12 weeks is a fair enough punishment for anyone who lays a finger on an official, aggressively, through anger and/or frustration. It has to be heavily punished.

Again, I accept that. However, the reality is the league isn't viewed as a serious part of our season so a guy who did something that warranted a 6 month suspension in January could serve that and nobody would really care while a guy who does something that warrants a 12 week suspension in July could miss every important game he could play doesn't make sense. A hand on the shoulder of a linesman which results in a player missing every important game he might play in the year when another player could break a guys jaw in the league miss none seems very harsh to me.

[dublin7]

It's clear some people on this MB have a serious chip on their shoulder when it comes to the dubs.  If Connolly gets a suspension for that nothing incident then the PC brigade have taken over and common sense is irrelevant. Clearly some people have no life and their existence is only to complain about anything and everything. Some people seriously  need to get rid of the chip on their shoulder in terms of connolly/dublin and get a life.  If the linesman had a problem he would have told the ref. Said nothing, end of story

[Zulu]

You are making some strange points here Zulu. Did Paul Galvin have that ref fearing for his safety when he slapped the notebook? You can't allow people to go pushing and shoving linesmen and refs around the place. Connolly was clearly irate and pushed the linesman. It's a no brainer.

I agree with what you're saying and I accept Connolly pushed him but I'd argue it was on the lower end of the scale. Speeding is speeding but there's surely a difference between going 42 mph in a 40 zone and going 142 mph in a 40 zone. I'd argue that Connolly was closer to 42 than 142. If we had a league and a guy who did what Connolly did in February got the same punishment as a guy in July I could probably accept it but when a guy is suspended from nearly every game that matters for a light push on a shoulder then I think that's a punishment not fit for the crime.

[Farrandeelin]

Imagine if Connolly was from Tyrone...

[Zulu]

To you maybe. The point I'm making is that in most sports there is a season where games at the start and games at the end are broadly similar in value. Whereas in the GAA games before June don't really matter so suspending someone in June is far more serious than in January. If that's the case then I think something like a (very) light push on a referee is no merited by a 12 week suspension. I didn't watch that and think that guy deserves never to play IC football in 2017 again. That's what you are arguing and I can't agree.