Joe Brolly

[JoG2]

I'm no fan of Joe Brolly, but his interview last week on Off The Ball last week was very entertaining, in particular the line about needing to be careful not to get "knocked over by kangaroos" at lower level GAA courts. 

Whereas the guy from the CHC came across as a pompous moron!

Far from it, Benny.
Explained a complex issue very well, despite the clown of an interviewer butting in all the time.
Calm, logical and reasonable.
You'd know he was a Meath man.

I'd agree as well. Mayo's Keane was mentioned as an example of a player from a top 4 County say who was cleared to play, I wish he'd have been pushed a bit more on it (maybe he got off on a technicality, I can't remember).
The CHC man also mentioned that a player can have a club member accompany him to any of the 2 layers of the appeal process before it hits the DRA,  if that club man happens to be a solicitor, that's a stroke of luck for the player / club. I'd say there's many a club about have a handy solicitor as a member who hasn't darkened the doors of the clubhouse 

[screenexile]

I'm no fan of Joe Brolly, but his interview last week on Off The Ball last week was very entertaining, in particular the line about needing to be careful not to get "knocked over by kangaroos" at lower level GAA courts. 

Whereas the guy from the CHC came across as a pompous moron!

I actually thought Liam Keane explained a complex situation pretty well.  Good line about 30 inaccuracies in Brolly's interview.  Brolly certainly gave the impression that he steamrollered through the appeal hearing with a pint of Guinness in his hand spouting Latin showing the Dublin fancy Dans who was boss.  He wasn't even there.

Had to laugh at that bit, showed Brolly up for the bullshitter that he is

Pretty sure Brolly mentions in his article that he drafted the appeal submissions but wasn't allowed to attend until the DRA stage which it never go to.

[screenexile]

Fair enough I don't get a chance to listen to OTB.

[macdanger2]

Fair enough I don't get a chance to listen to OTB.

Yeah, in the OTB interview, he made it sound like he rode in on a white horse and slew gaa pen pushers left and right before him

[Main Street]

I'm with Big Joe on this one. The disciplinary process was a farce and the CHC was a large part of that farce.  The mere fact that the CHC was ignorant of the rules of procedure was damning in itself and then Keane  protests that their hands were tied in the determined process to land the player with a 48 week ban and the stain of a perjurer.

The first rule of procedure is to be seen to be objective
and to go out of ones way to be seen to be objective and equal. This has all the signs of a witch hunt by a disciplinary process who were determined to nail the player over a nothing offense, getting him to travel up and down the country and when he fails to make a third trip, he's guilty by default? The case should never have been handed for a third time back to CHC. They might not have had ill intent but felt it was their duty, however that does not matter because the process was already toxic and had all the appearances of a witch hunt.

And then in the interview Keane ask Ger a couple of times, pleading an emotion,
"do you think that it is right that somebody can deliberately mislead the tribunal?"  Here Keane is betraying himself, being indignant at the perceived insult of a player who he believes deliberately misled his tribunal. There is no room for personal feelings in these matters, one could possibly conclude with justification that the indignant feelings of the CHC led them to ride roughshod over their own procedures in the rush to land the player with the suspension.

Ger was  quite within his rights to give a stuttering defensive Keane a hard time with the questions.

[Seany]

So after regaling us with stories of him baffling the CHC with Latin and his superior knowledge and intelligence, it turns out he wasn't even there.  What a man.

The case was simple.  Matthew Fitzpatrick hit a man in the head from behind.  Plain for anyone to see.  The Antrim secretary acted with integrity when he identified him.  But for some strange reason, the player couldn't identify himself.  Had he done so, he would have got a one match ban.

Then comes the shenanigans.  legal crap.  Brolly trying to get a man off. 

Then he was free to play and went over on his ankle and will be out for a month.  Had he just accepted his medicine, he would have been suspended last Sunday for a match they couldn't win anyway and then be ready to play in the back door.

But we in the GAA are too good at trying every single trick in the book to get out of facing the consequences of our actions.  And boys like Brolly are all too willing to help them.  And all summer boys will get sent off and the culture of trying to look for loopholes to get off will continue.

And then they'll blame everyone but themselves.

[BennyHarp]

I've said it before, the GAA needs to get a full legal team in place, (maybe including the likes of Brolly and Fergal Logan who seem to be experts at finding loopholes), rip up the rule book and start again, making sure all possible loopholes are fully tie up.

[Main Street]

I've said it before, the GAA needs to get a full legal time in place, (maybe including the likes of Brolly and Fergal Logan who seem to be experts at finding loopholes), rip up the rule book and start again, making sure all possible loopholes are fully tie up.

Find out what structure works good elsewhere and implement it.

As it stands now, video evidence presented with the sole purpose of defending a named player against a charge
can be scrutinised by the CCCC to see if there is something happening elsewhere on the pitch.
Awful quality video is no deterrent. It doesn't matter that it's almost impossible to identify with any degree of certainty the alleged culprit/s or even what was the foul deed. Was it a hit, a touch, a mild scuff or just swiping at a wasp?
The CCCC are undaunted by all of this, they are on a mission. Where there is serious doubt, they will just surmise to fill in the gaps.
As it stands now, any moron with an agenda and a phone camera can take poor quality video of incidents on the pitch and send the recordings to the CCCC, where they will zealously attempt to make a disciplinary case out of it, just like this farce with Matt Fitz. If at first they don't succeed, the CCCC will try and try again to make the case fit against the player.

Take it to a next 'logical' step. Donegal are very good at making  surreptitious video recordings of their rivals. One could have a situation where 20 or 30 people with little cameras are placed around the pitch at the upcoming Derry v Tyrone game, recording every little incident on and off the ball. Quality is not important, the CCCC will just guess something serious must have happened even if the recording is foggy, blurred, shaky or out of focus. Post game, send all the recordings of the winning team players allegedly involved in contact into the CCCC for scrutiny. Should that county be Tyrone, the CCCC can then request the assistance of the Tyrone secretary who (just like the Antrim secretary) will no doubt be as keen as mustard to reveal the names of the players who he believes were involved. 

Then the CCCC send all that evidence to the CHC, who will  issue out an attend or be damned order to the all the Tyrone players involved. The CHC  faced with this overwhelming evidence of guilt will be duty bound to dish out the one game and 3 game bans to the Tyrone players. If it's as Seany suggests, a one game ban is appropriate for a hair ruffle, then most of the Tyrone team would at least miss out on the the semi final.

[Jinxy]

I'm no fan of Joe Brolly, but his interview last week on Off The Ball last week was very entertaining, in particular the line about needing to be careful not to get "knocked over by kangaroos" at lower level GAA courts. 

Whereas the guy from the CHC came across as a pompous moron!

Far from it, Benny.
Explained a complex issue very well, despite the clown of an interviewer butting in all the time.
Calm, logical and reasonable.
You'd know he was a Meath man.

I'll have a listen again. I was listening on the train on the way into work and just thought he sounded like he was not prepared to accept any responsibility for the chain of events, even though the whole thing was a complete shambles. I didn't think he convincingly explained why the CCCC held on to evidence that could have made this a non incident had it been handled correctly. The whole bit on them having their reputation tarnished and they were amateurs too was a bit nauseating too considering the coverage Fitzpatrick got and nobody has a clue who Liam Keane was before that interview so hardly an equal comparison.

The CCC or CHC don't decide what goes in the papers.  To be fair it's clear the media haven't been 100% over the full detail.  However Keane went a long way to clearing up a lot of the unknowns.

But I'd agree there are still a few unclear elements e.g. how was Frankie Quinn* (the Antrim Sec) able to identify Fitzpatrick when no-one else, including Fitzpatrick himself, was able to identify him?

*BTW Frankie should not be the butt of Brolly's snide laughter but should be congratulated for his accuracy.  It is Fitzpatrick in the clip!

Do you honestly think Fitzpatrick couldn't identify himself?

[Jinxy]

I'm with Big Joe on this one. The disciplinary process was a farce and the CHC was a large part of that farce.  The mere fact that the CHC was ignorant of the rules of procedure was damning in itself and then Keane  protests that their hands were tied in the determined process to land the player with a 48 week ban and the stain of a perjurer.

The first rule of procedure is to be seen to be objective
and to go out of ones way to be seen to be objective and equal. This has all the signs of a witch hunt by a disciplinary process who were determined to nail the player over a nothing offense, getting him to travel up and down the country and when he fails to make a third trip, he's guilty by default? The case should never have been handed for a third time back to CHC. They might not have had ill intent but felt it was their duty, however that does not matter because the process was already toxic and had all the appearances of a witch hunt.

And then in the interview Keane ask Ger a couple of times, pleading an emotion,
"do you think that it is right that somebody can deliberately mislead the tribunal?"  Here Keane is betraying himself, being indignant at the perceived insult of a player who he believes deliberately misled his tribunal. There is no room for personal feelings in these matters, one could possibly conclude with justification that the indignant feelings of the CHC led them to ride roughshod over their own procedures in the rush to land the player with the suspension.

Ger was  quite within his rights to give a stuttering defensive Keane a hard time with the questions.

Stop trying to make 'Big Joe' happen.
It's not going to happen.

[Main Street]

I'm no fan of Joe Brolly, but his interview last week on Off The Ball last week was very entertaining, in particular the line about needing to be careful not to get "knocked over by kangaroos" at lower level GAA courts. 

Whereas the guy from the CHC came across as a pompous moron!

Far from it, Benny.
Explained a complex issue very well, despite the clown of an interviewer butting in all the time.
Calm, logical and reasonable.
You'd know he was a Meath man.

I'll have a listen again. I was listening on the train on the way into work and just thought he sounded like he was not prepared to accept any responsibility for the chain of events, even though the whole thing was a complete shambles. I didn't think he convincingly explained why the CCCC held on to evidence that could have made this a non incident had it been handled correctly. The whole bit on them having their reputation tarnished and they were amateurs too was a bit nauseating too considering the coverage Fitzpatrick got and nobody has a clue who Liam Keane was before that interview so hardly an equal comparison.

The CCC or CHC don't decide what goes in the papers.  To be fair it's clear the media haven't been 100% over the full detail.  However Keane went a long way to clearing up a lot of the unknowns.

But I'd agree there are still a few unclear elements e.g. how was Frankie Quinn* (the Antrim Sec) able to identify Fitzpatrick when no-one else, including Fitzpatrick himself, was able to identify him?

*BTW Frankie should not be the butt of Brolly's snide laughter but should be congratulated for his accuracy.  It is Fitzpatrick in the clip!

Do you honestly think Fitzpatrick couldn't identify himself?

Belief has nothing to do with it. Fitzpatrick was hounded over a triviality. Players by default deny stuff. If a case is not proven, they walk.
After attending hearings twice, he was handed a 48 week ban for not turning up at a third CHC hearing, where he was  to be charged with deliberately misleading the CHC.
The CHC fcked up, as bad as GUBU. Keane is unfit for that duty. The CHC should have stood back and taken on board much wiser counsel.They had no procedural mandate to find the player guilty of that charge. The mere fact that they thought they could go for a 48 week ban, over what was nothing to begin with, betrays very bad judgement.

[screenexile]

I've said it before, the GAA needs to get a full legal time in place, (maybe including the likes of Brolly and Fergal Logan who seem to be experts at finding loopholes), rip up the rule book and start again, making sure all possible loopholes are fully tie up.

I've some sympathy for this approach Benny but the counties, players and management could help matters by fessing up and taking their medicine too.  Both approaches needed.

He didn't even do anything . . . he pushed him in the back as far as I could see it was hardly assault. A complete mountain out of a mole hill and I'm glad the young lad got off!

Compare that to lads who actually throw boxes and kicks and still appeal decisions based on a technicality it's night and day!

[Main Street]

Just in case there is some doubt where this CCCC and CHC fckid up and are not fit for purpose.

The proper procedure is the CHC presents all the evidence to support the charge against the player at the Hearing.

The fuzzy video is presented, Fitz denies that it is he.
If the more clear evidence had been presented, then Fitz might well have said, 'okay that does look like me', 'yes it is me', 'lets look at the further evidence'.

All the evidence has to be presented at the hearing and it has to be decided there and then if the player is intentionally misleading the CHC based on the evidence presented. The CHC can't suddenly be given other evidence after the Hearing which was not presented to the player at the original Hearing and construct a new charge.

[Main Street]

So players lie all the time??  Don't you see how difficult that makes the authorities job?

Afaia most players on the pitch take issue over  decisions made against them which involve some doubt.
If the evidence in a disciplinary case is unclear, a player has the right to deny the charge, it's up to the CHC to prove otherwise.

Afaia defendants facing charges in the courts have the right to deny those charges. The courts have the burden to prove the case.
If a guilty verdict is handed out, the defendent cops the verdict. There is no big hissy fit by the judge, as in 'how dare the defendant deliberately deceive the court etc.

[Main Street]

Just in case there is some doubt where this CCCC and CHC fckid up and are not fit for purpose.

The proper procedure is the CHC presents all the evidence to support the charge against the player at the Hearing.

The fuzzy video is presented, Fitz denies that it is he.
If the more clear evidence had been presented, then Fitz might well have said, 'okay that does look like me', 'yes it is me', 'lets look at the further evidence'.

All the evidence has to be presented at the hearing and it has to be decided there and then if the player is intentionally misleading the CHC based on the evidence presented. The CHC can't suddenly be given other evidence after the Hearing which was not presented to the player at the original Hearing and construct a new charge.

If the video evidence was fuzzy and unclear how was MF absolutely certain it wasn't him?

You still don't get it, no wonder Joe appears to be a super legal eagle.
The one thing  for sure is  that the CHC had no legal right to proceed with the 3rd charge. So whether Mat was not sure, or a little bit sure, or very sure,  or most definitely sure that it was not him in that fuzzy video,  does not not matter one whit.
The CHC fcked up, Keane fckd up and he still struggles with accepting that he fcked up as he spent so much time trying to justify why he and the CHC fcked up in that off the ball interview.