Cork goalkeeper Anthony Nash has raised several green flags with his signature lifting style
The GAA's Management Committee has proposed clarification of the rules on penalties and 20m frees in hurling, which would mean the end of the 'Nash free'.
The recommendations would ensure that in most instances shots are taken from the full 20 metres out with no rushing the ball from defenders.
Controversy has arisen following the style of penalty/20m free pioneered by Cork goalkeeper Anthony Nash, whereby the ball is lifted forward several metres before striking towards goal.
Last Sunday, in an attempt to negate that advantage, Waterford goalkeeper Stephen O'Keefe charged from his line once Nash had lifted the ball and saved from close range.
The referee ruled that the ball was in play once Nash had lifted it and that O'Keefe was within his rights to advance, but there was controversy over whether lifting the ball counted as 'striking'.
The new clarifications proposed confirm that it is not and seek to stop defenders advancing from the goal-line while also forcing the attacking player to strike the ball no closer than 20 metres out.
The attacking player may still lift the ball forward before striking, but must bring the ball back from the line (up to seven metres) to do so.
Central Council is expected to rule on the proposed changes before the weekend.
GAA Statement in full:
The Management Committee of the GAA has asked Central Council to consider and adjudicate on the following recommendations for Interpretations of Rule in relation to the Playing Rules of Hurling 2.2 Exceptions (i) and (ii), 2.3, 2.5 and 4.16(b)
The terms “taken” or “retaken” in Rules 2.2 Exceptions (i) and (ii) and 2.3 shall mean the ball being “struck”.
A player taking a penalty or a 20m free puck, may bring the ball back up to seven metres from the 20m line for the purposes of making a traditional run at the ball, but shall strike the ball on or outside the 20m line but not inside it.
Exception: In the context of Rule 2.5, if a player taking a penalty or free puck on the actual 20m line fails to lift the ball at the first attempt or fails to strike it with the hurley, and that action causes the ball to marginally cross inside the 20m line, the player, as provided for in this Rule, shall be allowed to strike the ball on the ground without delay.
(a) The players defending a penalty or free puck awarded on the centre point of the 20m line shall stand on their goal-line and may not move towards the 20m line until the ball has been actually struck. ‘Lifting’ the ball with the hurley does not constitute ‘striking the ball’.
(b) The players defending a free puck awarded on the 20m line at a point other than on the centre point of that line shall stand a minimum of 20m from the point of award of the free and may not move closer to that point of award until the ball has been actually struck. ‘Lifting’ the ball with the hurley does not constitute ‘striking the ball’.
This Interpretation shall, in accordance with Rule 3.43, Official Guide Part 1, have the force of Rule until Congress 2015, when the issues will be further addressed by way of Motion(s).
Sky had their cameras pointed the wrong wayon Saturday. While Kilkenny were busy splattering Offaly like a bug on a windshield there were some dramatic scenes playing out at the same time in Limerick.
Hammy Dawson, of the St Patrick’s GAA club, staged a one-man sit-in protest Limerick City Junior A hurling final between Na Piarsaigh and Crecora in Clarina. Dawson’s issue was with his club being forced to give Crecora a walkover in the semi-final of the competition last weekend as eight of his fellow clubmen were on duty with the Limerick senior and junior footballers.
Attempts to reschedule the game, including an offer to play on the Bank Holiday Monday, all failed. Dawson told the Limerick Leader: “Fixing that game made no sense but refusing to reschedule was worse, showed no respect for either hurling or football, certainly showed no respect for this club or for the players involved. We don’t blame Crecora, we blame the City Division board. They were wrong from day one to fix the match for that date.
“But if they try to go ahead with that I will lie in the middle of the pitch – that game will not take place. I’ll do everything I can physically to make sure of that. It’s a disgrace.”
As good as his word, Dawson turned up and lay in the middle of the field, his protest lasting two hours before the Gardaí eventually persuaded him to leave the pitch. It’s fair to say by that stage he had clearly made his point.
Here’s the ‘Limerick Leader’ piece on the intervention of the Gardaí, complete with pictures. http://iti.ms/1jeZcP1
Eddie Connolly: ‘I’m in flying form again. Please God, I can fully recover and they can find a place for me again.’ Photo: Gerry Mooney
Eddie Connolly strode onto the pitch at O'Moore Park in Portlaoise, started kicking a ball and 20 minutes later, for the first time in six months, he felt a burn.
"I had made two or three runs," he smiles. "And the burn spread right across my chest. It was bloody brilliant."
That was at the beginning of May. A week earlier, Connolly had taken a phone call from Richard Poole from Portlaoise who was looking for cancer patients to play in a charity football match organised by former patients of St Luke's and St James's Hospitals. On match day Connolly walked into the St Luke's dressing room, greeted his manager Brian Cody, and felt like he belonged again.
"Every player there: Martin McGrath, Joe Deane, John McGrath, they had all suffered cancer in some form. The difference was I was the only player still receiving treatment," Connolly added. "I was due in for chemo the next day. The others were looking at me as if I had two heads."
Spend even a few minutes in Connolly's company, however, and you won't be surprised at anything he does. A born winner and competitor, he carved out a serious reputation as a hurler and footballer for both Tipperary and his club Loughmore-Castleiney, winning dual county minor titles in 2002 and building from there with a succession of teams.
As Tipperary play Limerick in the Munster championship opener this afternoon, Connolly still holds onto the dream that he could make the squad again. In 2011, the tenacious defender was drafted onto the senior hurling panel by Declan Ryan and also figured for John Evans' footballers in the Kerryman's last year in charge.
In 2012, he captained Tipperary to the All-Ireland intermediate hurling final and then set about reclaiming his place in the senior set-up. As recently as last October he looked right on course. Loughmore were pushing hard on two fronts, en route to an historic double of hurling and football titles. The same 15 players were more or less the team's backbone in both codes and Connolly was impressing every weekend.
It was only in the latter stages of their county hurling quarter-final against Borris-Ileigh that his dream season turned to devastation. With 10 minutes to go, a high ball was lobbed in around the square and Connolly lost his man, Brendan Maher, who rose above him to flick the ball home. "I just blanked for a second," Connolly recalls. "I lost the ball but worse still I lost Brendan and that was just not me. I never ever lost the man."
They won, but he walked off the field with a thumping pain in his head. He took a shower, asked the team physio for two Nurofen and headed back to the stands to watch Nenagh éire óg and Kildangan in the other quarter-final. But he could neither focus, nor follow the ball. Somehow, with his vision blurred, he lasted until five minutes before the end before asking a team-mate to drive his car home. "I spent the entire journey concentrating on not getting sick in my car. At home, though, I vomited violently four or five times. You know how you often feel better after getting sick? Well, I actually felt worse."
His family knew something wasn't right. Eddie's sister Fiona, a physical therapist, brought him to Shannondoc. From there he was switched to South Tipperary General Hospital, Clonmel and put on a drip, but his condition deteriorated. The doctors saw the scratches on his arm and wondered if he had meningitis. They forgot he was a hurler, just after a championship match. The scratches were merely wounds of battle.
"By then, though, I was in a critical condition and rushed to Cork. There was a drip in my arm and any time I moved a machine would beep and drive me mad. The pain in my head was unreal; I couldn't hold my arm still, so it kept beeping. I remember roaring at the poor nurses to take the fucking thing off me."
He was stabilised, told that a shadow on his brain had been detected and that surgery was required. But he spent the next 10 days waiting for the operation. "I was waiting and fasting; losing weight. I was on a list and absolutely pissed off. It was the Saturday week before the county final and I said I was off home if they didn't have a place for me in the theatre. My sisters were down visiting and I insisted on going home with them. Fifteen minutes before they left, I was called to theatre. I was delighted."
Connolly remembers being asked a flurry of questions when he woke up, but the only thing he could mutter was that he was starving. He asked for toast and when the nurses came in to check on him an hour later he was on his feet heading towards the toilet. The nurses were aghast and tried to whoosh him back to bed. A tumour the size of a golf ball had been cut out of his head; the surgeons had taken as much as they could without affecting the brain, but as far as Connolly was concerned the recovery had started.
"I was lucky," he says frankly. "I had the tumour on the front right. If it happened on the front left, where all the movement and reflexes are centred, I could kiss goodbye to sport or hurling and football again. So I just got up and at it. I don't feel sorry for myself; there are people in way worse situations than me. I was lucky to be so dehydrated in the match, that the pain was so intense, because it meant the condition was detected early. Imagine if I didn't play sport? The tumour could have festered for another six months."
It hit his family and the locality hard, but typically the GAA fraternity rallied around. Connolly received get-well cards from every corner of the country. A Mass was held for him and the parish priest visited him in hospital and jokingly scolded him because they had run out of Communion that evening. On the Tuesday after the operation, he was released from hospital and tipped up to Templetuohy to watch Loughmore train. There, on a bitterly cold night, he was warmly welcomed back and embraced by his team-mates. It was an emotional reunion.
He hoped to watch them win a county title but the day before they played Nenagh he woke up with another blinding headache. He tried to force some breakfast down, but couldn't. The thoughts of missing the final filled him with fear so he tried to tough it out. The pain, though, was too severe. With his vision again blurred it was straight back to Cork. The diagnosis was swift – a build-up of fluid was causing increased pressure.
He made do with following the county final on Twitter; watching deferred highlights on TG4 with his brother and sister-in-law. On the Monday he asked to go home and was told he could, but to summon his parents down first. The news, he sensed, couldn't have been great.
"There was just silence inside the doctor's office when the tumour was said to be cancerous. I just remember one line – 'it won't go away on its own, but it won't spread'. In the car on the way home there was nothing but silence. It was just like: fuck it."
That evening he hooked up with his team-mates, by now deep in celebration mode following their win over Nenagh. In need of a pint, Connolly joined them, relaying the news and explaining how treatment would be required for the next nine months. It hit them hard, but as the initial shock sunk in, a player from a rival club approached Connolly. "Eddie," the opponent said. "If I could pick one lad to fight this it would be you. You are the one mentally strong enough to beat this."
He decided to undergo chemo and radiotherapy in Dublin where he had lived since he was 18, having studied architecture at DIT before joining AIB Head Office and working his way up to assistant manager.
"I love it up in Dublin; I'm living with three lads from home – Derek Burke, Paul McGrath and Kieran McGrath – and one fella from Laois and we actually have three cars going up and down home for training so I had plenty of help and support."
He underwent six weeks of combined chemo and radiotherapy, five days a week, before taking a break for Christmas. Only twice did he have to take the bus to St Luke's Hospital. Everywhere he turned a friend or neighbour from home was waiting with a car, ready to ferry him over and back. The treatment knocked him for six and lying flat on a table for 10 minutes at a time with a mask on his face was the worst part.
"I described it as a really bad helmet," he laughs. "It was beat into me. If you were claustrophobic you were in trouble. I lost my hair as well, but that didn't bother me. I shaved it all off. It's mostly back now."
He got word that his former Tipperary team-mates were organising a 6km run, days before Christmas, and sought to join that run. It's an amazing testament to him that, just seven weeks after having a brain tumour removed, he finished it in 30 minutes.
More importantly, on a dirty day in December, the people of Tipperary showed Connolly their appreciation, with thousands across all age groups turning out in atrocious conditions to run with him and lend their support. Each time he paused for breath, another hurler would urge him on. It galvanised everyone; the players insist that apart from raising funds for North Tipp Hospice it helped bond their team. They hope that unity will prevail when they tackle Limerick this afternoon.
Quietly, it also lifted Connolly. "Just to see so many familiar faces," he smiled. "Just to be back in and around the Tipp boys again . . . it was a big lift." And another step in his recovery. Another step closer to resuming his life and career; to shaping his own destiny.
"You must do whatever you have to do to make your own way. I don't like this 'why me?' attitude," he shrugs. "I have a great fighting chance and hopefully I'm taking it. I never really had dark moments, or broke down at any stage because I had such support."
He's back in the gym since March and already ramping up the free weights. He returned to work with AIB three weeks ago, easing himself in with half days. He wants to climb the career ladder further and once he gets a clean bill of health has that marked down as a priority.
"Playing the GAA charity match was another milestone," he reckons. "There is an incredible video from that game with stories of life after cancer. People can find it on YouTube or by hitting www.charitygaamatch.com. It will inspire others. For me, it was just brilliant getting back to play. But I've been getting boosts like that all along."
None more so than when Mickey Harte came to visit him last November. "I got great encouragement off Mickey and to see how he dealt with my parents who, like him, are very spiritual, was unreal. Mickey gave me a card with a prayer and when he later came down to present Loughmore with our medals another thing he said stuck in my mind. 'Tomorrow is another day'. Mickey's right – if I ever have a bad day tomorrow is another. And I always try to be better tomorrow."
All going well, and if the doctors agree, he'll be back hurling in five to six weeks. In 2013, before he went on the hunt for those two county senior titles, he had already spent nine months out of action after completely tearing his groin off the bone.
"I'm only a three-month man anyway," he laughs. "I usually only come back in July when the heavy stuff is done. Look, that's the plan – to get back soon. I'm in flying form again. Please God, I can fully recover and they can find a place for me again."
Of course they will. Even though he's not been around he's become their heartbeat.
Limerick’s scoring hero Shane Dowling yesterday condemned critics who had poured abuse on him and his teammates.
“Last week, the chairman of the club showed me a text message from a journalist in Limerick. I’ve no problem with someone voicing their opinion. Players play bad, they know they’ve played bad.
“That particular person personally abused me in that text message. I don’t say that lightly. Above anything else I’m just delighted I got my chance today. And I hope I answered him.
“It’s been incredibly frustrating. I’ve no problem with people voicing their opinions but when people go over the top and don’t show you any respect, it’s not nice.
“Thank God, that we answered that today.”
Dowling was warm in his praise for the Limerick fans, however: “Our supporters are absolutely phenomenal. You saw what it meant to them there today. It’s not just in Limerick that it’s a problem. You get written off and you just want a little bit of respect. That’s all.
“It’s been going on for the last three months. I don’t like bringing it up because everyone has been bringing it up. But when Donal (O’Grady) left, people thought the whole ship fell apart.
“Nothing fell apart. We’re Limerick hurlers. Let our hurlers hurl and that’s all we want to do. I saw Andrew O’Shaughnessy saying during the week, all the abuse they got in their time and things that were questioned about them. They were unfortunate not to win anything. We’re Limerick hurlers and all we want to do is hurl.”
Last year’s experience stood to Limerick, said Dowling.
“I said one thing at half-time — if Tipperary go out there and get a goal and a couple of points — funny enough that’s how it panned out — why would you panic? It was the same last year in the Gaelic Grounds. It was a carbon copy of last year’s game in the Gaelic Grounds.”
Yet Dowling also saw differences compared to 2013.
“It’s so different to last year because last year no one gave us a chance but that didn’t bother us because we didn’t deserve a chance.
“This year I couldn’t understand why no one gave us a chance.
“Our league form was the same as last year. We’re a championship team and we try to do it when it counts. You can see what it means to everyone there today, the players, the fans. It wasn’t just a once off.”
Dowling said he hoped people retained some perspective about the players.
“The lack of respect shown to that team during the week was unfair.
“But it’s funny, one thing I saw coming out from the GPA launch during the week, we’re only human.
“I don’t know if some people know that we’re only human. I go home tonight, go to bed and get up and go to work in the morning. We’re only here to try our best and I hope people realise that.
“People have questioned a lot of things over me, fitness, ability, the whole lot. I’m not saying I set the world alight on fire. I didn’t. But it’s nice to show that you’re still doing something good.”
Tipperary will be looking for a strong performance from Séamus Callanan when they take on Limerick in their Munster SHC semi-final in Thurles tomorrow. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho
Though we tend to see Tipp’s world through the lens of their meetings with Kilkenny, it’s Limerick who’ve been the canary in the coal mine for the past two seasons.
Just about getting away with a shoddy display in Thurles in 2012 was a portent of wobbly days to come; melting as the temperature rose in the Gaelic Grounds last year said nothing good about their chances in the subsequent qualifier against Kilkenny.
On both occasions, Limerick shook them and rattled them and generally made the needle slip the groove.
In last year’s game especially, the final 20 minutes boiled down to a very simple matter of who could win their own ball. In just about every battle for possession, the Tipp player was rocked on his heels. Limerick won that closing 20 minutes by 0-9 to 0-2.
Straight-forward
It can be argued, then, that Eamon O’Shea’s task coming in here is actually reasonably straight-forward.
Tipp have the better group of players and if their gameplan clicks and they create enough space for themselves, they ought to run up a total well out of Limerick’s reach.
But games take on a life of their own and if it comes down to a rassle in the dirt – and Limerick should make sure it does – O’Shea’s side will be in trouble unless enough of his players to refuse to be beaten in individual battles.
TJ Ryan’s first championship game as Limerick manager wasn’t supposed to arrive like this but the post-league doings are done now and his players have been making made all the right noises. He has shaken up the team a little from the one that beat Tipp last year – Séamus Hickey’s repatriation to corner back with Shane Dowling in from the start at wing forward suggests a mite more attacking emphasis.
Shoot-out
That said, you would imagine it’s probably not a great idea for Limerick to get drawn into a shoot-out.
A feature of last year was the totals that beat Tipperary weren’t huge – 1-18 for Limerick, 0-20 for Kilkenny. Limerick’s front six certainly has the guns for a decent score but then so do Tipp’s.
Make this game about a battle of big totals and it’s hard to see past O’Shea’s side. In fairness, it’s hard to see past them anyway. The lessons of the past two years must surely have been learned by now.
If this turns into a war, they can’t just rely on Bonner Maher – it’s not the kind of game Noel McGrath and Séamie Callanan thrive in but they’re big boys and Tipp need them to prove it. Do it now and it will stand to them for the rest of the summer.
They were tired, thirsty, all of them soldiers happy to be headed home to New Hampshire. The troop carrier out of Iraq stopped briefly in Shannon to refuel, and Ireland being what Ireland is, even in the wee hours the airport bar was open — and this curious game of hurling was playing on the TV.
“We had no idea what we were looking at,’’ recalled Eddie Clements, one of the National Guard soldiers whose life in that moment some nine years ago veered sharply to a whole new world of sports. “It was kind of like, ‘Hey, hurling, OK, what’s that? That looks pretty cool.’
“We were at the bar for an hour, maybe a little more, but that’s what sort of planted the seed.’’
It’s because of that brief stop — a serendipitous meeting between a group of US soldiers and an ancient Gaelic field sport dating back some 3,000 years — that come Sunday, the Boston Northeast Gaelic Athletic Association will be paying tribute to the Barley House Wolves, the New Hampshire-based hurling team founded by those soldiers soon after they returned home from their 11 months in Iraq in 2005.
This is a big weekend for the GAA, the start of its football and eventually its hurling seasons at its expansive Irish Cultural Center in Canton. It will be all football, Gaelic style, all the time on Sunday, beginning at 10:30 a.m. with the Connemara Gaels facing the Shannon Blues.
But many Wolves players will take the field for a ceremony at 1:30 p.m., the GAA eager this Memorial Day weekend to salute both their dedication to hurling and their military service.
“Our organization loves these guys,’’ said John Cunningham, chairman of the Boston GAA, his Irish brogue as thick as the lush green grass on the ICC’s main pitch. “We love everything about them.
“It’s their whole story, not just how they found the game, but their whole attitude toward hurling. They march on the field together. They warm up together. They never abuse the officials. They just play. They play it the right way, just the way you’d expect Army guys to play.’’
Clements, 34, was among the Wolves’ founding members. The National Guard unit (the 172d Mountain Infantry of New Hampshire) was led in Iraq by Lieutenant Colonel Ray Valas, who grew up in Canton and envisioned the game as an essential way to keep the unit connected upon its return home.
According to Clements, it was Valas, along with Sergeant First Class Ken Kinsella, who felt it was imperative for the soldiers to maintain their bond, not solely for the fun of playing a new and curious sport they discovered over a beer or two in Ireland, but also to make certain everyone coped effectively after serving nearly a year in a combat zone.
Each and every day for those 11 months in Iraq, Valas noted to his troops, they were in “warrior mode,’’ and history has it that hurling was a training tool of Gaelic warriors. Each of Valas’s 182 warriors returned from Iraq, 14 of them with Purple Hearts.
“All of us came home alive, that’s the important thing,’’ said Clements, still a National Guard member, as well as an assistant brewer with Border Brewery in Salem, N.H.
“A few of us were hurt, seriously hurt, but all of us came home alive.’’
Bits of soccer, baseball
The Wolves, sponsored by the Barley House Tavern in Concord, N.H., number upward of 45 players, many of them with military backgrounds, according to Mike Reynolds, who is both a player and a member of the club’s board of directors.
Of the founding members, only Valas and Clements remain as players. But there is a steady stream of recruits, not only from the local National Guard ranks but from the civilian side, too. A number of police and fire department employees belong to the squad. All males, they range in age from 18 to over 50.
Reynolds, 31 an ex-Army, grew up in Salem, N.H., and knew nothing about the sport until 3-4 years ago. Now, he says, hurling is his passion.
“The fastest-paced field game I’d ever seen, on a par with hockey,’’ said Reynolds. “It combines the skills from a number of games more familiar to us here and puts them together.’’
The slightly modified version of American hurling is played with 13 aside instead of the game’s traditional 15. The ball (sliotar) is roughly the size and weight of a baseball. Each player carries a hardwood stick (hurley) of 30-40 inches, and it is used on offense like a baseball bat, on defense like a lacrosse stick.
“Any play on a ball that is in the air is valid,’’ said Reynolds, noting the game’s inherent opportunity for bumps and bruises. “So if you swing at the ball and it breaks my wrist, well, that’s my fault for being there.’’
Games, fast and physical, are divided into 35-minute halves. The two goals, one at each end of the field, are akin in size and shape to football goalposts, albeit with the portion below the crossbar backed by a net, similar to soccer. A ball batted through the uprights tallies a single point, while a ball smacked into the net (guarded by a goalkeeper) is worth 3 points.
By a North American’s eye, the sport is a mongrel combination of baseball, football, lacrosse, soccer, even field hockey. The smilin’ Irish eye might contend that hurling is the father of all those.
Growing popularity
Irish football, noted Cunningham, is more popular in the United States with adult players, typically Irish immigrants and Americans of Irish heritage. But hurling, he said, is experiencing substantial growth in the youth ranks, which the Boston GAA is eager to promote and foster. If kids want to learn hurling, the GAA wants to teach them, and it will make equipment and coaching available (visit bostongaa.com).
“We’re surprised how much the American kids love it,’’ said Cunningham, 34, who came here 16 years ago to launch his career as an electrician. “Not just Irish kids, but all kids.
“It’s a sport played ’round the world — Dubai, Asia, all over. We’ll see an Asian kid running around here with his little Irish shirt on, and that’s great. Everyone plays. It’s the solace of the sport.’’
According to Cunningham, the Northeast GAA has nine adult hurling teams and 23 football teams, reaching from the Boston area out to Worcester, Portland, Maine, and Hartford. Stop by the Irish Cultural Center in Canton any weekend, now through Labor Day, and it’s virtually guaranteed one of the two sports will be in action on one of the many fields. Admission for this Sunday is $10, with ample free parking throughout the facility’s 20-plus acres.
The Barley House Wolves captured a national amateur title in 2012, and it’s the constant striving for hurling excellence, noted Clements, that has become the club’s mantra. The Wolves were formed first and foremost as a means for soldiers to look after soldiers, and while that ethos remains today, the focus has shifted more to sport than salve.
It’s a game. It’s sport. The Wolves want to win.
“We’ve got Guard guys, police officers, firefighters . . . and I’d say the majority of us still today have a current or prior military affiliation,’’ said Clements, a halfback when he’s on the field. “So there’s always that feeling out there, that military guys understand military guys. And we absolutely love to play.’’
