It’s like the GAA version of the ‘Butterfly Effect’. You know the popular take on chaos theory: a butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing and storm clouds form over the Atlantic some time later as a result.
Except in this case, it’s more a case of a manager pulls an earpiece from an opposition S&C coach in Salthill and storm clouds gather over Killarney.
The ‘Ger Brennan Effect’ might be a better parable.
Is there one law for the Dublin manager, who was suspended for 12 weeks for minor physical interference for that incident in the deciding league game against Galway in Salthill – and another for Donegal manager Jim McGuinness?
That’s the question so many are asking after the fractious first-round match in the All-Ireland series between Kerry and Donegal last Saturday night.
The scenes that unfolded after the half-time whistle blew will be looked at by the GAA.
The sight of both sets of players getting involved in a melee, albeit mainly pushing and shoving and grappling of jerseys, with various members of management and backroom team members also involved in heated exchanges, is not a good look.
From afar: Dublin manager Ger Brennan watches from the stand, after he was sent off during the Allianz Football League Division 1 match between Galway and Dublin at Pearse Stadium
Especially when Donegal defender Ryan McHugh was split open and left blood-soaked – it looked like Kerry forward Micheál Burns was the guilty party and was the one who received the red card from referee Seán Hurson when the teams eventually emerged for the second half.
‘I didn’t see anything to be honest with you. I didn’t see anything.’
Donegal manager Jim McGuinness doing an Arsène Wenger on it post-match just felt disingenuous. It seemed as though he saw something.
He saw enough to be hopping mad as that scene unfolded in front of him, to lose his cool enough to keep wagging his finger at Kerry midfielder Diarmuid O’Connor, and then cross a line by appearing to push him.
In a way, his action was understandable. In the heat of battle, there’s that instinct to protect his players after seeing McHugh grounded and bloodied, the player left resembling a boxer whose eye is split from an uppercut.
But that’s not how the GAA’s rulebook works.
It’s not an eye-for-an-eye. If he went and laid hands on the right player – namely Burns – it would make for a stronger case for the defence. But what mitigation is there in targeting a different player? The wrong player?
Tension: Donegal manager Jim McGuinness and a bloodied Ryan McHugh leave the pitch at half-time of match between Kerry and Donegal at Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney
Does pushing Diarmuid O’Connor deserve a retrospective punishment, given that McGuinness – and Jack O’Connor – received nothing more than a talking to about their team’s behaviour before the second half started?
A 12-week ban would take McGuinness past the All-Ireland final date – if Donegal, as the new favourites after their ruthless picking apart of Kerry, live up to their current billing.
‘It is what it is. There was a strike and he’s split. Once your player gets split, people are not going to be happy. So, it was dealt with by the referee.’
McGuinness was clever enough to suggest the referee had already taken action and thus rule out any further punishment. He put that front and centre in his own interview on streaming platform GAA+.
But taking issue with Off The Ball analyst Tommy Rooney for raising the issue in the post-match media conference only served to inflame the whole thing further.
His hectoring, defensive tone – ‘Are you trying to get me a ban, Tommy?… You’re flying that kite, are you?.. Out of 50 people, you’re finger-pointing me, is that what you’re saying?’ just hit all the wrong notes.
It didn’t take long for Mike Quirke, someone with close ties to Kerry manager Jack O’Connor, having been a part of his backroom team, but also someone highly regarded as a straight-shooting voice to spell it out: ‘He was sour after the game with journalists who were asking him questions about it but given the precedent with Ger Brennan, he obviously crossed the line himself and put hands on a player.’
Icon: Donegal have real designs on the All-Ireland title under the guidance of Jim McGuinness
That view was echoed on The Sunday Game, by Enda McGinley and then Cora Staunton.
Here’s McGinley: ‘Ger Brennan was exceptionally harshly done by. And the vast majority of people would appear to think that it was a bit over the top in terms of suspension, but the GAA stuck to their guns.
‘Because of that, I think they’ve painted themselves into the corner and I think Jim McGuinness will feel a bit of heat.’
Dublin have been rocked by Brennan’s suspension. Westmeath’s victory in the Leinster final has only compounded the impact of the suspension in what is his first season in charge.
The question remains whether the chaos of Salthill could yet be felt some time later in deciding the All-Ireland race.
