Guilty four ones who got caught
THE Monaghan senior footballers have become the latest inter-county team to openly flout Covid-19 restrictions by holding a collective training session.
The 40-strong gathering at manager Seamus McEnaney’s home club Corduff, involving players, coaches and support staff, took place on the last weekend of March.
The Irish Independent reported the incident last Thursday in which a dossier showing footage and images of the squad session were sent to a number of parties including, somewhat strangely, the Department of Justice. The anonymous tip-off was then forwarded to the GAA and the relevant authorities.
An Garda Siochana confirmed over the weekend that they were investigating the incident.
Following on from similar breaches by Dublin the previous week and Cork and Down back in January, this was the last thing the GAA needed on the very day they were due to announce their new fixtures roadmap for the 2021 leagues and championships.
Newly installed president Larry McCarthy admitted these high-profile incidents had caused much reputational damage to the Association at a time when the whole of society was suffering badly from the effects of the pandemic.
Personally I believe that GAA inter-county panels should have been allowed return to train when elite soccer and rugby returned some months ago, but the Government decided otherwise and postponed the return until April 19th. The argument around professional and amateur teams’ ability to withdraw to isolated bubbles is a little flawed given the fact that the League of Ireland is not universally full-time, yet fixtures were allowed to resume in March. But the decision was made and so be it. We’ll all just be happy to get back in the coming weeks - inter-county from next Monday and juveniles the following week.
But how should we handle those who broke the rules and what should the sanctions be?
Dublin manager Dessie Farrell was suspended for 12 weeks and his team have forfeited home advantage for their upcoming National League game against Kerry, which will now be played in Portlaoise. Does the punishment fit the crime?
When news broke last week of the Monaghan incident in Corduff, County Board chairman Declan Flanagan claimed he was unaware of any training session taking place, saying as far as he was concerned ‘Monaghan GAA are not doing any training’. However they soon followed the example of Dublin and banned their senior team boss Seamus McEneaney for 12 weeks.
That’s now four inter-county teams who’ve been found to be in breach of the Government restrictions and official GAA guidelines.
While there is no proof, I’d be very surprised if there were not more inter-county teams involved in similar clandestine activities to circumvent the rules. Monaghan, Dublin, Cork and Down were just the unlucky ones who were caught.
There are plenty of lads around the country keeping their head down at the moment, hoping that details of further dawn sessions don’t come to light.
I also find it very difficult to believe that various County Boards had no knowledge of what was taking place.