More Thuggery on the GAA field

[Declan]

THE Limerick county board has imposed the maximum ban of 96 weeks on the supporter who entered the pitch during a county football final and confronted a player.

The incident happened seconds from the end of last Sunday's drawn football final when the Dromcollogher-Broadford fan confronted a Newcastle West player as he was leaving the field after being shown a second yellow card.

Martin Stokes, father of Drom-Broadford player, Jason, was given the maximum ban after the local CCC reviewed the referee's report and also studied pictures of the incident involving Newcastle West player James Kelly at the Gaelic Grounds.

Stokes has three days to lodge an appeal against the ban or he will not be allowed to attend the replay on Friday night.

[Billys Boots]

Stokes has three days to lodge an appeal against the ban or he will not be allowed to attend the replay on Friday night.

Jaysus that's Ireland in a nutshell - here, you're fucked out for a year, but whist if you send in an appeal you can still come on Friday night.  Wow!

[AZOffaly]

In fairness isn't that how suspensions work in the FA as well? If you don't appeal, your ban starts now, if you do, it starts after the appeal.

[NAG1]

And the courts in most cases

[AZOffaly]

And the courts in most cases

Do the courts not put you on remand? Then if you are guilty it counts as time served. If you are innocent it's 'oops, sorry about that'.

[NAG1]

And the courts in most cases

Do the courts not put you on remand? Then if you are guilty it counts as time served. If you are innocent it's 'oops, sorry about that'.

I said in most cases, would only be the more serious ones that remand would be used!

[Gabriel_Hurl]

So what's happening here then?

[Boghopper]

A defendant is only placed on remand if there a risk of say reoffending or they granted bail until their trial. In this instance a sentence has been handed out and there is the option of appeal. In the courts a defendant can appeal their sentence and remain free until their appeal is heard. I'm not condoning thuggery although we should be careful about pointing fingers at others. Violence happens every weekend although in a lot of instances it goes unreported and no action is taken. People only seem to be outraged when they see violence in the form of video or photographic evidence and if JOE mentions it on whine line the whole episode will go viral in a very short time. Anyone who supporter or player who assaults a player or official on the field of play deserves all they get in terms of disciplinary sanctions. Again though  it only takes one edjut to get on the radio and a for  20 second peice of footage to get released to the broadcast media before a witchunt starts against a club or players and the CCC fearing more public outrage hand out disproportionate suspensions and fines.

[Declan]

Just following on from this and reports that  Páraic Duffy yesterday said the association had no issue with criminal prosecutions arising from assaults at games. this was a particularly painful one :

A YOUNG Gaelic footballer suffered horrific injuries during a minor championship match, a court has heard.

"I was screaming in pain and my shorts were covered in blood," said footballer Shane Ryan, whose scrotum was torn open.

Mr Ryan was giving evidence at Trim Circuit Court where a footballer from a rival team is on trial over the incident which occurred during the match in Co Meath three years ago.

Darren Morgan (21), of Elm Grove, Rockfield, Kells, Co Meath, pleaded not guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Ryan, of Garristown, Co Meath, at Skryne GAA grounds.

The defendant had been playing for Round Towers of Kells while the complainant had been playing for St Vincents, Curraha, in the semi final of the minor county championship.

Mr Ryan scored a goal and following this he was assaulted, the court heard.

"He came up and squared up to me as if he was going to headbutt me but instead he grabbed my testicles, squeezed and pulled. He laughed at me. I looked into my shorts and there was no scrotum there."

The court heard Mr Ryan spent a number of days in hospital.

Replying to the defence Mr Ryan said that he was in 'excruciating pain'.

The barrister said his client conceded that he had put his hands on Shane Ryan and caused him damage but had not meant to cause him injury.

Mr Morgan told the garda that a number of players had gone for the ball, but Shane Ryan won it. The defendant said he had been on his knees and was trying to stop Mr Ryan.

"I grabbed him by the balls, I meant to grab his shorts or jersey," he told the gardai.

The trial continues.

[camanchero]

this has to stop.
it has crept into society in the past few years. a couple of decades ago, it was not the done thing a couple of decades ago to hit lads in the stones.
However instead of fist fighting or head butting etc, the initial target now seems to be the liathroidi.
Worse still this has started to happen om the field of play.
We used to wince when we would hear of rugby lads twisting ankles, grabbing crown jewels or biting ears etc in rucks - same goes for the soccer players and their off the ball kicking and on the ball 'nutcracker' cases a la Vinnie Jones on Gazza.
On the GAA fields it has come on. Trash talking, sc**bag hitting off the ball (a punch from behind was bad enough but some of the carp nowadays)....
thats not what we want in our games.
any offenders should get banned for life.
trash talking should get a red card - or a yellow at least.
We need to clean this up before it gets worse.
that is a bigger problem and what we shoul dbe targeting along with diving and feining injury instead of talking about changing too many hand passes in a game.

That poor young fella. Fecking disgrace. Unfortunately Kells have that reputation for scumbaggery in GAA.

[Declan]

Well not guilty is the verdict but the other thing that really annoys me about this is the club's approach - 

Footballer cleared of causing horror injury to opponent on pitch
By Richard McCullen
Friday October 26 2012

A young footballer who grabbed another player's testicles tearing his scrotum has been cleared of assault.

Darren Morgan (21), of Elm Grove, Rockfield, Kells, Co Meath, had pleaded not guilty at Trim Circuit Court to assault causing harm to Shane Ryan (19), of Garristown, Co Meath, at Skryne GAA grounds, Skryne, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, on September 25, 2009.

Mr Morgan had been playing full-back for Round Towers of Kells while Mr Ryan had been playing half-forward for St Vincents/Curraha in the semi-final of the minor county championship at the time.

Mr Ryan had told the court that early in the game Mr Morgan had come through a scuffle of players, grabbed him and knocked him to the ground.

He added that Mr Morgan later made a groin-grabbing gesture to the player who was marking him.

A short time later Shane Ryan scored a goal and following this he was assaulted by Mr Morgan, the court heard.

"He squared up to me as if he was going to headbutt me but instead he grabbed my testicles, squeezed and pulled.

"He laughed at me. I looked into my shorts and there was no scrotum there," Mr Ryan said. He added that he was screaming in pain and his shorts were covered in blood.

He said he was in such pain that he could not go down on the ground and left the pitch, adding that the referee would not stop the game as he was then off the field of play.

The court heard Mr Ryan was given first aid in the dressing room where he went into a panic attack before being taken by ambulance to Our Lady's Hospital in Navan.

He was released from hospital after a number of days.

Mr Ryan agreed with defence that he was taking a civil action against the defendant and the GAA but denied he was doing it for money.

"I'm doing it for justice," he said.

Mr Morgan told Garda Shane Dooley that while trying to stop Mr Ryan get the football he had grabbed the player by the testicles accidentally and had not meant to hurt him.

"I grabbed him by the balls, I meant to grab his shorts or jersey. I didn't mean to grab so hard," he said.

He denied making gestures at Shane Ryan or attempting to headbutt him or sneering at him.

He said that when the game was over the players had been advised to take off their jerseys as the father of the injured player was going mad looking for whoever had injured his son.

Asked by the defence how the media got hold of the story Gda Dooley said there were a lot of people at the match and they were talking about it but were not talking to the gardai.

A number of witnesses who had attended the match said they had seen Mr Ryan in distress on the pitch but had not seen how he had gotten injured.

Francis McNulty, who was co-manager of the St Vincents team, said it had been a very free-flowing competitive match.

"He was one of the best players," said Mr McNulty.

Following an attack by his team, the ball was cleared down the field and there was "a coming together of players", according to the witness.

"I was standing at the halfway line. Shane Ryan was on the pitch right in front of me in extreme distress.

"He said he could not go down on the ground and I took him off," said Mr McNulty.

After the conclusion of evidence, the jury of seven men and five women took two hours to return a not guilty verdict to a burst of applause from friends of Mr Morgan.

Neither Mr Morgan nor Mr Ryan would make any comment when they left the court yesterday.

[trasna man]

Ugly scenes marred the provincial JHC final in Ballyhaunis between Calry St-Joseph's and Skehana after Mayo referee Kevin McGeeney was struck to the ground after a group of Skehana players swarmed around him following the final whistle.

Calry St-Joseph's will remember the game fondly as they were crowned Connacht champions thanks to a long range winner from Keith Raymond in the dying seconds that gave them the victory by 1-12 to 1-11. Raymond was a class apart on the day and underlined his credentials as Sligo's best hurler with a personal score of 1-9.

Connacht GAA chiefs will wait for the referee's report before launching an investigation but Skehana players are likely to find themselves in implicated after they swarmed around McGeeney as the game finished.

Match reports appear to implicate one Skehana player in particular who struck McGeeney but Connacht council secretary John Pretty has asserted that he will wait for the referee to submit his report before deciding on whether to launch an investigation.

He also warned the players involved that he would do everything possible to ensure that he correct outcome was reached and that he would not be found wanting in this matter.

[sligoman2]

I heard the ref fainted when he realized a sligo team has won a connacht hurling final

[Declan]

RICHARD MCCULLEN – 08 FEBRUARY 2013

A young Gaelic footballer has been convicted of assaulting an opponent whose jaw was broken in three places during a junior club match in Co Meath.

Kenneth Darby (23), of Ardnamullan, Enfield, had denied assaulting Brian Smith (28) at Clonard GAA grounds on August 28, 2011.

Darby was playing for Clonard GFC and Mr Smith was playing for St Mary's Donore at the time, Trim Circuit Court heard.

Mr Smith told the court that after 25 minutes of play he had been switched to mark the other team's number 13 – a player of medium build and with red hair – and within minutes he was struck on the left side of his jaw.

He said he was forced to leave the field as he was bleeding from the mouth and dazed.

His jaw had been pushed over and his teeth were not lining up, he said. He later required surgery at a hospital in Dublin.

Mr Smith told the court there had been "no pulling, dragging or verbal altercation" between the two players before the incident and he could not have been struck by anyone else as there had been no other players near them at the time.

Darby denied striking the other player.

"I have never raised my hand to anyone and never will," he said, adding that while he had probably been wearing the number 13 jersey on the day, he could have been wearing number 15. Cross-examined by prosecuting counsel Carl Hanahoe, he said he remembered his marker being switched but did not know who he was.

He said he had only become aware during the second half that one of the other team had been brought to hospital but did not know it was his marker.

Joe Reynolds, a water carrier for St Mary's, said he had seen the incident and there had been no other players in the vicinity at the time.

"Number 13 struck Brian Smith to the left side of the jaw. It was like a left hook or a punch," he said.

Marcus Morrison, the assistant manager of St Mary's, said he had seen the players running side by side, looked away for a second or two and when he looked back he saw Mr Smith bending down holding his jaw while Darby jogged away

[Hound]

Assault case coming up shortly too in relation to a broken jaw suffered in a Dublin Division 1 club game last year.