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Philly McMahon might wish he was playing in the 1970s judging by media reaction to this 40-year-old haymaker

Published 16:47 23 Sept 2015 BST

Updated 15:15 29 Jan 2019 GMT

SportsJOE
Philly McMahon might wish he was playing in the 1970s judging by media reaction to this 40-year-old haymaker

Homesport

It's been hard to escape the fall-out from Philly McMahon's apparent eye-gouge on Kerry's Kieran Donaghy.

The Dublin defender appeared to make contact with the Kerry captain's eye in the closing stages of his side's All-Ireland victory over the Kingdom on Sunday, the main talking point from the game. From newspapers to social, digital and broadcast media, it's all everyone has talked about the past few days. It has got us thinking, what was the reaction like to another high profile tussle in a major game like back in the day? Some weren't captured on camera, of course, but there was that doozy of a fight between Kerry's Paidi Ó Sé and Cork's Dinny Allen back in the 1975 Munster football final. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0h3QQIBH6Y Ó Sé lands a haymaker worthy of a heavyweight boxer, and the impact was so great the referee appears to lose his balance. There must've been outrage? Right? Wall-to-wall newspaper coverage for days, enraged Cork fans writing into newspapers and calling radio stations to vent their anger against O Se? First, let's remind ourselves of the coverage around McMahon's apparent eye-gouge. There was the reaction on Twitter. https://twitter.com/BrianRainey5/status/645627855561486337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/canntoya/status/645628218117070848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/Shane_McMenamin/status/645628273804865536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The reaction to the Sunday Game's reaction. https://twitter.com/poolfan81/status/645684921177145344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/Connoed/status/645701782115487745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/connell_sean/status/645708451180449792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw The player's reaction.
"We’re grown men, we play a physical sport. At the end of the day, the result is what ends it, we shake hands and get on with it." - Philly McMahon
The digital media reaction.mcmahon reactionmcmahon reaction2 Newspapers. mcmahon reaction1 Broadcast media. https://soundcloud.com/offtheball/reaction-and-analysis-of-yesterdays-all-ireland https://soundcloud.com/secondcaptains-it-com/dublin-rain-kerry-flop-japan-shock-ireland-cruise And, here we are, a few days later, and despite the immediate nature of modern media, people are still talking about the incident. https://twitter.com/PaulMcQuillan76/status/646629936711778304 So, although social media didn't exist back in 1975, surely the coverage of the fight between Ó Sé and Allen was just as all-consuming? Right? Well, it seems not. We've looked through the newspaper archives, and this is all we could find in reference to the fight:kerryman o se allen It comes from The Kerryman newspaper, and reads:
"Play was held up following an incident in front of the stand, involving Paudie O'Shea and Denny Allen, with O'Shea flooring Allen in retaliation for a blow received, and this really had the crowd buzzing."
Here's a reminder of what had "crowd buzzing" back in July 1975.allen o se fightSimpler times.

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Philly McMahon might wish he was playing in the 1970s judging by media reaction to this 40-year-old haymaker