Your manager will always tell you to chase down every ball like it’s the last one you’ll get.
Sometimes, you’ll just be like, ‘what’s the point? There’s no way in hell I’m going to win a ball that a defender is five yards in front of me in the race for.’
Ballybrown full forward Ross Griffin surely conjured a wide smile on the face of his manager, Evan Loftus, when he chased a lost cause like his life depended on it in his side’s Limerick senior hurling Championship quarter-final clash with rivals Patrickswell.
Griffin hounded a ball that looked for all the world to have favoured opponent and former Limerick under-21 star Mark Carmody, before eventually winning the ball, shipping a hefty knock off another Patrickswell back man, and then carving open the defence to set up a game-changing goal for Mark Sheehan.
The only problem with the whole thing was that in Griffin’s successful attempts of brushing Carmody out of his way, he delivered the most blatant push in the back you’re likely to see.
Éir Sport deserve huge credit for their recent initiative to provide Irish people with quality coverage of club Championship games around the country, and they captured the goal, and the build-up to it, sublimely.
Now in fairness, Carmody has no excuse for not rising the ball first time, but at the same time, Griffin’s push in the back left him with no chance of retrieving the situation.
And it was a push in the back, a blatant free out.
GOAL Ballybrown!
37: Patrickswell 0-10 Ballybrown 1-09. Live now on eir Sport 2! #LimerickGAA #ClubChampionships pic.twitter.com/r3DEqQe4Rt— eir Sport (@eirSport) September 16, 2017
Eventually, Patrickswell recovered to lead the game with only seconds to go, as they looked destined to secure their spot in the semi-finals of the competition, but the Ballybrown free-taker Alan O’Connor displayed nerves of steel to level it all up, and send the game to a replay.
The incident with the goal will surely give defenders around the country more reason to fuel the opinion that they are discriminated against by referees.
The attacker will always get the benefit of the doubt.
Defenders always feel like the world is against them, in this case, it looked like it was.
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