Refs need respect of pundits as well as players
A RESPONSIBILITY for upholding the principle of discipline does not rest just with Diarmuid Connolly or Jim Gavin.
While the player and his manager would be entitled to take private issue with a 12-week suspension, they had no reasonable grounds for disputing the guilt of the forward. The safety of the match officials must be beyond dispute.
Their status should, too, but one of the ineradicable poisons in football and hurling is the acceptance of abuse towards referees and their assistants.
Repairing that deep fissure in the fabric of the GAA relies on more than players taking their medicine and managers pausing before they criticise match officials.
If the culture is to change, then all who contribute to it must do so.
That includes pundits who are now benefiting from their fame in the game. Tomás Ó Sé made a ridiculous contribution to the Connolly discussion on Twitter.
After claiming it was ‘yet again nothing’, he asked that ‘please god (sic) let sense take its course’ and we could get on with the football.
A man now selling opinions hard-won over years of illustrious service in the Kerry jersey must do better than that.
When does Tomás think that a player touching an official becomes ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’?
There can be no sliding scale. Officials need to be respected, by pundits as well as players.