REF’S BLUNDER LET US LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY

I SUPPOSE I have some sort of an idea how the Armagh players must be feeling about getting an unexpected second chance in the Championship. Just like them, I assumed the Offaly hurlers were out of the Championship in 1998 when referee Jimmy Cooney famously blew up early in the All-Ireland semi-final replay against Clare.

I distinctly remember the disappointment of being gone out of the Championship that night – well supposedly. I was 30, getting on a bit. I knew time was catching up on me and so many different emotions were going through my head that Saturday evening.

I came down to the get the papers around midday the next day and decided to drop into Kavanagh’s for one. I’d say the bottle of Bulmers had only just arrived when I got a call from hurling secretary Tony Murphy. I wasn’t exactly in great form for a conversation until he told me the second replay had been fixed for Thurles the following Saturday – and that Offaly were training at four o’clock that evening.

I remember thinking, ‘Jesus this is unbelievable’.

We’d been through a lot with Babs Keating and his departure

We trained in Birr and the feeling among the group was that we wouldn’t be beaten.

After what had happened with the supporters sitting on the pitch, forcing the GAA’s hand, there was a sense that we weren’t going to let them down.

I can understand the Clare lads giving out, even now, feeling that they could have gone on and put All-Irelands back-to-back.

We’d been through an awful lot with Babs Keating and the whole fuss surrounding his departure and that was another motivating factor.

So it’s hard to know how Laois are feeling after thinking they were through to the next round of the qualifiers – only for the GAA to order a refixture after using one sub too many.

You’d think it must be a huge relief to Armagh to get a second chance but maybe it’s not. There’s talk of players having made plans and no doubt they completely switched off until the news filtered through a few days later.

I don’t know how the spirit is, what the feeling is in that dressing room.

But one way or another, it hasn’t been a good summer for the GAA in terms of matches being decided in the boardroom. Laois supposedly cleared the last substitute with the fourth official while the Christy Ring Cup hurling final ended in farce with the wrong scoreline.

Nearly 20 years on, it seems some things haven’t changed.