Disturbing scenes as brawl escalates into crowd during Slaughtneil Ballinderry reserve game

It's been a difficult two nights for Slaughtneil.

On Wednesday, the club's senior team were beaten in the Derry SFC for the first time in five years after Eoghan Rua Coleraine came from behind to knock them out of the Championship. The Derry kingpins felt a few decisions went against them in Owenbeg and a couple of their supporters showed their anger towards referee Declan Mullan and his officials after the game. Things got a little bit feisty in a game involving Slaughtneil for the second night in a row on Thursday. The Slaughtneil reserves lost to Ballinderry after extra time in the senior reserves championship up in Ballinderry and the game didn't pass without its controversy. A scrap broke out involving players from both sides at one stage of the game and as is always the case, it was incited further when mentors and supporters got involved. It all turned uglier when the scuffle escalated towards the crowd. The sight of a young fella in a Slaughtneil half zip watching all of this unfold from mere yards away made the whole thing even more disturbing. Brawls and incidents of this ilk have become the norm in the last number of weeks and it's frightening to think that dangerous scenes like these are so common and so accepted. Something needs to be done to stomp it out of the game quickly.