The tricks of the trade.
Clare defender Gordon Kelly has been issued with a three-month suspension for allegedly squirting an umpire with water during Clare’s controversial Division two League clash with Tipperary recently.
Controversial because a sideline incident at the same game saw Tipperary selector Shane Stapleton rushed to hospital with a head injury after a coming together with Clare star Jamie Malone, who was subsequently handed a two match ban for his involvement.
It all happened in the Cusack Park showpiece that proved costly for Colm Collins’ Banner army.
The Clare manager has blasted the decision to land his man with a three month ban, pleading Kelly’s innocence and insisting on a lack of intention on his player’s behalf.
Colm Parkinson and Conan Doherty debated the issue on Monday’s GAA Hour Show. Host Wooly felt the time was a tad harsh for the crime, but Doherty reasoned that the punishment for interfering with an official is there in the rule-book, and compared it to the infamous incident involving Dublin’s Diarmuid Connolly last year.
Either way, it’s difficult enough to believe that Kelly would have managed to squirt the umpire accidentally, but it’s not like it was an act that was full of malice anyway.
“He’s saying he did this and inadvertently hit the umpire. You’d want to be standing very close to the umpire for that to work. It was a pretty contentious game… You can get frustrated with umpires,” said Wooly.
“But even if he sprayed the umpire, I still think it’s very steep.”
The issue got the lads going on the various water bottle tricks used by players in the GAA. Wooly busted one of the biggest myths held by players all over the country about cleaning their bottles.
“I do know that when a lot of lads get water bottles sent out to them, they spray a bit out to clean the top of it.”
Every second player does it. They spray water on the ground for no apparent reason.
“I don’t think it actually works, but it’s what lads do because you want to be cleaning the outside of it, not the actual top of it,” he said.
The delivery of water to a player and his marker will usually result in some sort of interaction between them. Some players offer a drop to their opponents out of courtesy. Others, like Wooly, saw it as an opportunity to stun his marker, to frighten them.
“I’ve done that once or twice on the football field, where somebody throws you in water and I’ll just completely spray the lad I’m marking in the face with it.
“It paralyses them, they don’t know what to do. Can you imagine how you would react to that? It’s one of the all time classics. You don’t know how to react,” he laughed.
Former Dublin and Lucan Sarsfields player got that treatment off Parkinson in a Leinster final. He didn’t take it too well.
“I did in a Leinster final to Paul Casey.
“I remember marking him in the Leinster final and I got water thrown in and I just drowned him with the water, you know when you start low and spray up into his face, and he didn’t do anything, he just stood there. He was completely rattled, but what could he do?”
“Funnily enough, because he’s involved with the Dublin ladies there, I went onto his Twitter once or twice only to find out he has me blocked. I never actually followed him or knew he was on Twitter,” he said.
How would you react?
You can listen to this gem and much more belters from Wooly and Conan on Thursday’s GAA Hour Show.
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