Is this a thing we do in the media where we pretend like we’re outraged by something because we feel like we have to say that we are?
Listen, it isn’t nice seeing Niall Morgan roaring in a player’s face when a goal chance has gone begging but we need to get real if we think this isn’t going on all the time or that it is actually even that bad.
On The GAA Hour, Galway legend Padraic Joyce said that sledging is something the association really needs to start clamping down on and other journalists – colleagues – have claimed that Morgan should be punished for what he did.
Is it really a priority? Is it realistic even to think this can be stamped out so easily?
Darragh O’Hanlon misses for Down after going straight through on goal and the Tyrone ‘keeper goes over to rub it in. It’s not particularly classy but so what? Do you think he gives a shit?
Tyrone are in the business of winning and ever since Mickey Harte’s first great team, part of that formula was goading the opponent, sledging, mind games. All Niall Morgan is really guilty of here is trying to reinforce to a half back that he isn’t good enough to hit the net so piss off back up the field and don’t think about coming through again.
He had nothing to do with O’Hanlon’s miss so perhaps he looks a little silly or audacious but how’s it any different to a defender roaring in the face of an attacker after a free kick has been missed? How’s it much different to hitting your man a shoulder and calling him crap when you yourself have been let off the hook by his squandered chance?
And Niall Morgan claims that all he said to O’Hanlon was to “stick his chest out now like he had been firing it into the Monaghan men…”
“I shouted, ‘Where’s your chest now? Stick out that big chest now.'”
Darragh O’Hanlon scored 1-5 against the Farney county in the semi-final and he didn’t mind letting the opposition know about it.
But Niall Morgan has had to come out and explain himself because there’s been a public outcry since.
https://twitter.com/niallmorgan01/status/886628799999291392
https://twitter.com/niallmorgan01/status/887065746932731905
It wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t distasteful. It was just a bit of opportunism, however crass you might find it.
For God’s sake, everyone’s bloody at it. There’s a real tribalism attached to the GAA and some people will do anything to put off their rivals.
It gets people going. It gets inside other people’s heads. It gets done all over the country, all over the ages.
Joe McMahon and the Tyrone men enjoyed Tommy Walsh losing possession.
Aidan O’Shea can hardly touch the ball without someone taking joy in it not finding the posts.
Even the Kerry men don’t mind a bit of exuberance.
Michael Murphy’s goal in the 2012 final was met with a ‘how about that’ push on poor Kevin Keane.
Sometimes it’s retribution. Sometimes it’s just a way of saying you’re only getting started. Other times you’re just desperately trying to put someone off their game.
It’s widespread though, it comes in many forms and trying to weed it out would be as disastrous as the black card.
Especially when most of the time it’s pretty harmless.
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