The Ghostwriter Did It!
Talking Balls 2 Comments »
Maybe Paul was innocently tucked up in bed in his jammies trying to get to sleep in the hotel bedroom, dreaming of an All Ireland after the nightmare of the year before. But that hoor Kennelly wouldn’t let him sleep because he was rabbitting on about what he was going to do tomorrow, how he was gonna hit this boy. . . who did he think he was, Roy Keane? Galvin had been there many times before. At this stage he probably knew more than most what to do and what not to do.
When Paul Galvin brings a book out, we’ll buy it. Kennelly? Dunno. The craving for media attention. The dancing jigs on the All Ireland podium. The newspaper extracts about what he was or wasn’t going to do in the match. His grovelling apology blaming the ghostwriter. The fawning of Kerry Chairman Jerome Conway with his silly claim that one line would have clarified the whole matter and that this isn’t the Kerry way. What a load of balls. Methinks they doth protest too much.
So whatever Kennelly said or didn’t say, or whether the ghostwriter f***ed up or not doesn’t matter. Or whether he proofed his book or not. That’s not the point. The facts are this, Kennelly hit Nicholas Murphy in the opening moments of the game with an illegal charge, the penalty for which is normally a straight red card. The issue of premeditation doesn’t come into the Official Rulebook. There is no trial process whereby the referee must decide on the balance of arguments put for and against the defendant whether the action was deliberate or not. He has to make a split second decision based on the evidence and on this occasion, Marty Duffy got it wrong.
Tadgh Kennelly should have walked and his ‘All Ireland dream’ should have been over then and there. Instead, there is a pointless debate over whether he meant it or not. If he discussed getting stuck into a Corkman the night before, that’s no great surprise, especially for a player unused to gaelic football, but one more used maybe to the rough and tumble of Aussie Rules where players are not sent from the field of play for dangerous tackles. Many’s a team have fellas who set out to target an opponent, to hit him early, to aggravate the guy with a short fuse and get him sent off. Tadgh Kennelly should have said nothing and nobody would have been any the wiser. But then, that wouldn’t sell as many books.
Here’s the quote that did the damage: “Nicholas Murphy had just turned slightly towards me which opened the way for my shoulder to catch him perfectly on the chin. Cop that. It’s different this time, boys. While I hadn’t wanted to come in and seriously injure anyone, I was determined to make a statement and I think I achieved just that.”
He certainly made a statement, in fact he’s made plenty of them. Let’s move on.
