Blind eye to Connolly but law is an ass

THE perfect tin hat was put on the Diarmuid Connolly saga this week with the off-the-record briefing from Croke Park that the suspended star would be allowed to train with the Dublin footballers while serving his 12week ban.

Jonny Cooper was obviously oblivious to the rule – and in truth it is so ridiculous that you could hardly blame him – when he informed reporters that Connolly was back in camp and participating in full training.

The official rule states that when serving a ban a member is denied ‘all functions and privileges of the Association’.

The GAA believes that such a rule is impossible to police because of the obvious logistical challenges that come with trying to keep an eye out for suspended players country-wide, most of whom – particularly where elite counties are concerned – are training behind closed doors.

Kieran McGeeney and Davy Fitzgerald, whose main job is on the training pitch, were allowed to continue with their core work of preparing their teams while also serving suspensions.

In Connolly’s case, it effectively means that a player who was found to have committed an infraction on a match official but which was not recognised by that official as an infraction at the time it occurred has been hit with a retrospective suspension, which only needs to be partially observed.

And then the GAA wonders why we don’t really get its rule-book.

If the suspension as applies under rule cannot be policed, perhaps they would be best advised to rewrite that rule so that we don’t have the farce of the law-makers turning a blind eye while their rules are being openly, and understandably, flouted.

If the law is an ass, looking away won’t stop it braying.