Someone, somewhere has their wires crossed
MALACHY O’ROURKE was, apparently, otherwise engaged, studying what was transpiring on the pitch in Ballybofey last Sunday. But, if anyone close to the Monaghan manager was listening to RTÉ Radio One’s commentary of DonegalTyrone, they are likely to have got something of a shock. During the tense Super 8s tussle, former Meath forward Bernard Flynn, who was providing analysis, mentioned that, on his way into the ground, he met O’Rourke who said that he ‘would love another crack at [Mickey] Harte’.
It didn’t seem like something the safe and measured O’Rourke would say, nor indeed something that Flynn would fabricate just to fit a narrative.
But, at a press conference on Tuesday last, O’Rourke told RTÉ’s GAA correspondent Brian Carthy that the conversation never took place.
Someone, somewhere clearly has their wires crossed. IN a week where all the talk has centered on the ugly side of the GAA in the hate mail and threats that managers receive, spare a thought for Jimmy Cooney.
The former Galway hurler and inter-county referee was the man in black when Offaly and Clare faced off in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final in 1998.
Cooney blew the game up two minutes early, with Clare in front. Offaly supporters invaded the pitch and staged a sit-down protest and subsequently the Galway man was subject to death threats which led him to end his inter-county refeering career.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One, he said: ‘The letters and calls kept coming until well after Christmas that year.’