Nash keen to move on from sliotar controversy
CORK goalkeeper Anthony Nash has played down the Munster hurling final sliotar saga, describing it as much ado about nothing. An individual linked to the Clare management team took a bag of sliotars belonging to Nash and threw it into the Killinan End terrace at Semple Stadium. Victors Cork accepted a formal apology from the Clare management and the Munster Council declined to launch any investigation. Double All-Star Nash said it wasn’t a big deal, revealing how he simply replaced the balls before throw-in and moved on. ‘I actually came in out of the parade and Pat Keane, our logistics manager, was there, he was putting sliotars beside the goals and I just said, “What’s the story?” He said, “All the sliotars are gone”,’ said Nash. “There’s an awful lot that has been spoken about the sliotars and about this, that and the other. We use Cummins All-Star sliotars, as everyone knows, we train three or four weeks up to the game with them and I go into the big bag with Pat and pick out how many sliotars we need for the game and put them into my own bag and that’s it. ‘So he went into the dressing room and got more sliotars
and they were the exact same. ‘There was a lot of talk about doing this with sliotars and doing that, but they’re just sliotars. ‘It didn’t really matter because whatever sliotar gets pucked down to my goal is the one I use anyway. It didn’t bother me. ‘I suppose it’s something that happened so people are going to talk about it. They offered an apology to our county board and our county board accepted it. It was pushed under the carpet, it’s as simple as that.’ Former Cork goalkeeper Dónal Óg Cusack, now part of the Clare management setup, stopped short of insisting that the GAA should introduce standardised sliotars. At the moment there are around 10 different types of official sliotars in use and Cusack claimed some fly further and straighter than others. ‘I don’t know about that because there’s a lot of people in business making sliotars, we’re talking about people’s livelihoods,’ said Nash. ‘It’s whatever benefits hurling, that I’m happy with and if they feel that would benefit hurling fair enough. ‘But there are a lot of people out there trying to sell sliotars and to make some money. I wouldn’t like to comment either way on it. It’s not something that’s bothered me.’ Cusack detailed various instances of sliotar skullduggery over the years, from sneaking a sliotar to Tipperary’s Eoin Kelly to make it more difficult to convert a penalty to a row with a match official who once confiscated his personal supply of sliotars. Cusack also said he regularly filed down the rims of sliotars to make them fly more accurately though Nash simply claimed that a ball is a ball. ‘Honest to God, they’re sliotars that I use in training and I take them out of the bag and hand them to the umpires for games, and that’s it,’ he said. ‘Every team uses a different set. ‘I saw at the weekend Waterford used Star, Tipperary and Clare used All-Stars, and Wexford used O’Neills. So I don’t think there’s any magic going on or anything like that. They’re all an official sliotar, the GAA have tested them and that’s it.’