Cowards in the GAA

opa01_2000

I remember reading with interest, in February of last year, how Finian Newman of Westmeath had his jaw broken in two places by a coward who punched him from behind. The same player got a one-month suspension and was thrown off the Cavan panel. This caused some discussion about the length of suspension.

Now it seems that the same player is back on the Cavan team although, in my opinion, his behaviour hasn't improved. How can the Cavan selectors bring him back and what will Westmeath players think if he faces them in the League game coming up ???

andrewie

The westmeath players will be relishing going up against him imo.

mchurl

i think the westmeath lads cant wait to come up against him, and tbh, it will be quite an interesting match to watch to see if there is any off the ball stuff happening as well.

opa01_2000

To be honest, I don't think he'll be there. He is the type who would punch someone from behind, completely off the ball and then cry to the referee when the ball is knocked out of his hands.

I think he's too much of a coward to turn up !!!

kincsem

opa01_2000 wrote:

I remember reading with interest, in February of last year, how Finian Newman of Westmeath had his jaw broken in two places by a coward who punched him from behind. The same player got a one-month suspension and was thrown off the Cavan panel. This caused some discussion about the length of suspension.

Now it seems that the same player is back on the Cavan team although, in my opinion, his behaviour hasn't improved. How can the Cavan selectors bring him back and what will Westmeath players think if he faces them in the League game coming up ???

I worked with a young man who was on the Dublin panel a few years ago. He got his first game for the county away to Tyrone. The ball was 50 yards away. A Tyrone player punched him in the face from behind.

So nothing changed in the GAA then.

A game without rules, played by "men". The authorities allow this behaviour. It will continue.

kincsem

"Do you like the fights? I went to a fight last night and an ice hockey game broke out." .... Comedian Rodney Dangerfield R.I.P.

Remind you of anything?

opa01_2000

This is an article by Eugene McGee at the time. As a Cavanman, I am so annoyed that not only is this person allowed to play again - he's actually on the Cavan team and imo he's not worth his place. While clubs and counties are seen to condone this type of behaviour it will never be stamped out.
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'MY jawbone is broken in two places at the top right and bottom left sides. I had an operation last Friday in which a steel plate was inserted over one of the breaks but it was considered too risky to put a plate over the other break. All my teeth have been dislodged and I have steel wire across both my top and bottom teeth."

On reading the above you might think that this was a medical report of somebody who had been involved in a serious motor accident and survived. It is not.

The horrific injuries were actually incurred in a game of Gaelic football played last Tuesday night under lights in Athlone.

Westmeath played Cavan in a game where many fringe players on both panels were given a run.

Finian Newman was one such player who lined out in the Westmeath half-back line and he was the victim of an off-the-ball assault by a Cavan player.

Finian first came to my notice, and thousands of others, when he gave a brilliant individual performance at corner-back for the Westmeath minor footballers when they defeated a hotly-fancied Dublin team in the 2000 Leinster final in Croke Park.

He is currently captain of the Westmeath Under-21 team and a member of Páidí Ó Sé's senior panel as well.

What made him somewhat unusual was that he is from Bunbrosna which, while well-known to thousands of people who travel the main road to Dublin via Mullingar, was never known as a home of inter-county footballers and in fact does not have a senior club.

But the young player's progress through the football ranks has been temporarily halted now as a result of what is rather ornately described as an 'off-the-ball' attack.

This expression 'off-the-ball' is a GAA euphemism for a cowards' charter which the GAA has, to its shame, never adequately addressed.

"My opponent had received a sideline kick and I tackled him from behind trying to prevent him getting the ball away. He did release the ball and I turned to walk away towards our goals as the play had moved away from our area.

"Suddenly I was hit in the face from behind, I was caught totally unaware and all I remember is the goal posts disappearing in a blur as I almost passed out with the searing pain."

These are the gory details of what happened as described yesterday by Finian Newman through his wire-bound teeth.

Hundreds of other GAA players around Ireland will empathise with his words because they too have been victims of the same sort of assault from behind while in an unguarded state.

It is this latter fact that makes this particular assault so serious because the victim suffers much more serious damage by virtue of being caught in a relaxed state.

Finian has been confined to six cups of soup over the past two days.

For the next few weeks any food he takes will have to be sucked through a straw.

Even walking up the stairs can cause a jarring sensation in his mouth with excruciating pain if he does not remember to take great care. Running is totally out. The Cavan assailant was given a straight red card by the Westmeath referee who was officiating.

Presumably, unlike the now notorious incident in which another young Westmeath player, Kenny Larkin, had his jaw broken in a challenge game against Down last May, this referee's report will be dealt with quickly by the GAC.

But will the punishment fit the crime? Can any GAA suspension adequately fit this sort of cowardly behaviour? How long can sports organisations in general maintain the myth that justice can be served for this sort of thuggery by the sports body merely banning the culprit from playing football?

'What happens on the field should stay on the field' is one of the most disgusting clichés relating to incidents like this. It is machoism carried to blind extremes and has no place in modern sport. Yet on the very rare occasions when a victim of this behaviour takes the case to court the majority of GAA officials are scornful of the decision and on occasion the GAA has been very slow to co-operate with the legal requirements for such court cases.

Well, maybe these reluctant GAA people should visit Finian Newman this week and see the consequences of one such cowardly attack which defile the good name of the GAA and the sportsmanship on which it made its name.

Finian should of course be down in University of Limerick continuing his second year studies for a degree in Physical Education but last week's vicious assault means that he will now miss several weeks' study and lectures.

Even more serious is the fact that he is due to undertake his practical teaching work in a few weeks' time and should his injuries prevent that he could actually lose an entire year of his university career. All because he was assaulted from behind in a challenge game of Gaelic football in which he hoped to advance his football career.

Finian Newman was due to captain the Westmeath Under-21 team against either Laois or Kildare in five weeks' time, something which he regarded as a great honour.

"It will kill me to have to miss that game because of the way I was assaulted. "Being hit from behind I regard as the worst thing that can happen on the football field," said Finian. But does the GAA feel the same way?

Incidentally, the Cavan player involved was back training 24 hours after the Finian Newman incident.

Lemlin

Can the Cavan player not be named? If anyone does know the name, could they pme me it. I'd like to know it as a Cavan supporter.

The Rooster

Lemlin wrote:

Can the Cavan player not be named? If anyone does know the name, could they pme me it. I'd like to know it as a Cavan supporter.

Exactly - name the player that received the suspension. Don't protect the gulity

opa01_2000

This was published in Irish Independent so it's in the public domain.

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WESTMEATH under-21 captain Finian Newman has described the length of suspension handed down by the GAC to a Cavan player alleged to have struck him during a challenge match last month as a "gross insult" to him.

The Cavan player, Eddie Reilly, was given a four-week suspension last week after being sent off by local referee Peter Daly during the game in the middle of February.

In the meantime Newman has had a permanent plate inserted above one of two breaks to his jaw he sustained during the off the ball incident.

Reilly was eligible to play again from last week but Newman will miss the Leinster under-21 quarter-final against Kildare this Saturday when Westmeath will, ironically, be captained by Kenny Larkin, the county's other high profile broken jaw victim.

In a week when the GAA's director general Liam Mulvihill expressed his concerns in his annual report to Congress about indiscipline and another Croke Park official, games development officer Pat Daly, raised serious questions about the disciplinary system, Newman says he feels "badly let down" by the association.

"To me that suspension is an insult. 'Where is the justice in it'?" he asked.

"The player in question can play again from last week while I have to watch the team that I captain from the sidelines once again.

"To be honest I was speechless when our county chairman Seamus Whelan rang me on Tuesday night to tell me what the suspension was.

"He thought I was gone from the other end of the line. I had been expecting more. I had put my faith in the GAA system but it has let me down," he said.

"I can't just leave it at this now. I will definitely be exploring all other channels open to me outside the framework of the GAA's disciplinary structures as a result of this. I was left sucking through a straw for three weeks, " he said.

Newman says he was quite happy initially to allow the GAA to deal with it but his dissatisfaction on hearing the verdict from last week's meeting is quite acute.

"If I had a son I definitely wouldn't be encouraging him to play Gaelic games. That was my initial feeling.

"I wasn't going to say anything on it but I feel so angered by this. I feel I have to do something."

Newman alleges that he took a punch to the face after clearing a ball during the challenge under lights in Athlone in the middle of February.

Reilly was subsequently sent off by the referee, and GAC chairman Tony O'Keeffe confirmed yesterday that he had been reported for a Category C offence.

"The Cavan player sent off made a personal appearance before the GAC last week in the company of his County Board chairman George Cartwright.

"He apologised profusely for what happened. He said it was never his intention to cause any damage to an opponent and that for him to do that was totally out of character," said O'Keeffe.

"The committee, acting on the referee's report, then passed the minimum sentence which is four weeks under that category of offence," O'Keeffe explained.

Newman confirmed that he had received no personal apology and that the only contact from Cavan was an official expression of regret over the incident from the County Board.

"An official who is in the same line of business as my father was also in regular contact to be fair to him," added Newman.

A visit to the surgeon in St James Hospital in Dublin yesterday opened the prospect of Newman having to wear an elastic brace on his teeth to help them close properly, he revealed.

"I'm already wearing a brace on my teeth to repair the damage to them.

"But these elastics are to help the upper and lower teeth to close properly. At the moment they are not catching right," he said. Newman is a student at UL studying physical education and geography and has been recently out on teacher practice in Mullingar.

"I started last week and it was difficult to talk for obvious reasons. But I had to complete it because the only other option open to me for practice was next September and that would have set me back."

Newman will wear a plate above one of the breaks to support it for the rest of his life but the insertion of another plate over the other break did not go ahead because of the proximity to a nerve.

The Bunbrosna defender hopes to resume playing again in three to four weeks but the legacy of this incident may last a lot longer.

mchurl

Disgraceful on the part of the GAA once again and tbh i hope Newman does proceed down other channels of discipline here so this reilly character pays for his actions.

opa01_2000

Played for Cavan again on Sunday last and was Man of the Match. Obviously all previous failings are now forgotten. Will he play against Westmeath in Mullingar on Sunday - I can see an injury in training coming up.