Has any four letters received more attention in the GAA world than the CCCC in the last few months?
Not a chance of it.
The CCCC made their breakthrough onto the national stage on the back of Diarmuid Connolly’s pushing of linesman Ciaran Branagan, and their subsequent decision to issue him with a 12-week ban for his indiscretion.
The CCCC’s verdict on this incident was challenged by Dublin and Connolly, and that seems to have set off a trend whereby every decison they make is appealled against.
The next big incident to enter the national psyche was that of Tadhg De Búrca, who was banned for an All-Ireland semi-final as a result of his category 3 infraction with Wexford’s Harry Kehoe.
A category 3 infraction is defined by the GAA as follows.
“Behaving in a way that is dangerous to an opponent including deliberately pulling on or taking hold of a faceguard or taking hold of an opponents helmet in hurling.”
De Búrca and Waterford exhausted every avenue of appeal available to them in their attempts to get this decision overturned. In fairness to them, they had a case, because there was no definitive camera evidence of the incident.
Their final route of appeal, the DRA analysed the crime and the punishment until late in the night last Thursday, and eventually upheld the suspension.
Austin Gleeson went and breached this category 3 infraction in the first half of the semi-final against Cork, and many were speculating, with good reason that the CCCC would take action and issue him with a ban for breaching this rule.
The photographic evidence was clear that Gleeson had deliberately pulled Meade’s faceguard.
News broke on Tuesday that the CCCC wouldn’t be providing Gleeson with the one-match suspension that the crime is said in the GAA rulebook to accrue.
The decision from the GAA was made on the back of referee James Owens’ assertion that he was satisfied with his adjudication of the incident on the day.
Tadhg De Búrca received a red card for the same offence. Many will argue that seeing as Gleeson didn’t receive a red card, the case is slightly different, but another Waterford player, in Stephen Bennett received no card for doing the same thing against Cork in the Munster first round, yet he was retrospectively sanctioned.
Adrian Tuohy was cleared to play for Galway in the final after an incident with Tipperary’s Bonner Maher, but Tuohy’s was a lot harder to adjudicate on, seeing as it was on the ball, his back was turned, and it looked like more of a natural motion as his arm flailed back when he was running.
Gleeson’s indiscretion, on the other hand, was a textbook infraction of the rule, and the GAA are undermining their own rulebook in taking no action against the Hurler of the Year.
They are effectively making their own rules null and void, and are allowing the bigger players do what they like. If a player of a lesser profile performed the same indiscretion, would he have been sanctioned? He likely would have been.
Kilkenny hurler Eddie Brennan summed up the anger of many GAA fan’s at the decision, and interestingly claimed that Tadhg De Búrca should feel aggrieved at how he was treated compared to Gleeson, and should even bring the CCCC to court.
The faceguard rule needs to be changed.
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