Joe Brolly has said that he is highlighting cynical fouling by Tyrone in order to create momentum behind initiatives to clean up football.
The controversial Sunday Game pundit and All-Ireland medallist with Derry further maintained that Tyrone's play is endorsed by manager Mickey Harte and that he intended criticism of Seán Cavanagh to be personal after the 2008 Footballer of the Year rugby tackled Monaghan's Conor McManus to prevent a goalscoring opportunity.
“I’m simply articulating what people are going away from matches feeling,” he told this newspaper. “It’s indisputable that Mickey has decided that his team will play this way. Tyrone don’t have 15 rider-less horses. They’re a very well managed, very well organised team.
“Their achievements have been simply astonishing and Mickey Harte deserves all the credit that’s going for that but there is a dark side to it and it’s now permeating other levels.
“I’ve seen it increasingly at games and it is simply not good enough. Everyone accepts that. Tyrone people accept that. They’ve said to me, ‘you’re right in what you say but it’s a personal attack on Seán Cavanagh’.
'Passionate supporter'
"I've been a passionate supporter of Tyrone and I admire Mickey Harte greatly but this can no longer be tolerated. And it is personal about Seán Cavanagh. Conor McManus thought it was pretty personal when he was dragged down. I'm saying to Seán that 'as a man, your conduct on the field leaves a lot to be desired'.
“I’m on the record as saying that Seán Cavanagh is a more influential Tyrone player than Peter Canavan. It may well be that he’s the premier footballer of his generation. Not since Maurice Fitzgerald in admittedly a very weak year for football (1997) has someone dominated a series in the way Seán Cavanagh dominated 2008.
“But he is tarnishing his reputation and he’s a role model. It is personal and I’m calling him out on it because it’s a disgrace. I’ve said it to him before: ‘you’re damaging your reputation and that’s not good enough. You’re better than this. Play your football and play it in the right spirit’.”
Brolly’s broadcast comments have drawn sharp criticism from Tyrone and were strongly rejected by Harte after Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat of Monaghan but he denies unfairly focusing on the county. “No-one’s saying that they’re the only team doing this but there’s no point in making an example of weaker counties.
“Tyrone have done it two weeks running and are in an All-Ireland semi-final. I think it’s fair to look at the impact such an influential county is having on the game.
“It was the same last September. It didn’t win me many friends in Mayo but I believed it was relevant to point out their deliberate fouling in an All-Ireland semi-final.”
He reiterated the concern that cynicism was being allowed to flourish in the game at present, a state of permissiveness that Brolly believes is unique in team sports.
“The biggest problem is the number of people saying, ‘well, what did you expect Seán Cavanagh to do?’ Answer: play the game.
“And I think it’s important to make the point that we’re the only sport that permits this, the only sport with this loophole. Soccer has severe sanctions, match bans and getting sent off, a penalty area that’s much farther out so you get the penalty nine times out of 10.
“Had it been done in rugby there’d be a penalty try and 10 minutes in the sin bin and then do you know what would happen? As we see with rugby, the player would say, ‘I’ve got to apologise to my team-mates and the supporters for leaving the team short. I shouldn’t have done it.
“And that wouldn’t be because the foul had prevented a try but because it had prevented a clear, try-scoring opportunity.”
Asked had he never committed the same foul of deliberately and contrary to rule stopping an opponent from scoring Brolly said such tactics weren’t part of the game during his playing career and cited an example.
“It wasn’t instinctively done. In the 1992 Ulster final against Donegal with Derry hot favourites to win, the ball was kicked down to the corner for Martin McHugh’s point, which was the killer point. I’d tracked back and he was being tackled by the three of us. He was at a bad angle and we were all tackling, tackling, tackling and could easily have pulled him down at the bad angle. But he ended up putting the ball over the bar.”
He also took issue with the number of players and former players who sympathise with cynical fouls. “Even pundits are saying, ‘everybody’s doing it’ and ‘I know it’s not great’. Somebody has to call it what it is and that clears the air and leads to proper debate.”
One of those, Tony Scullion, a team-mate of Brolly on the 1993 All-Ireland winning team and a four-time All Star, was a passionate advocate of the GAA’s new disciplinary rules, including the black card, due to take effect next January.
“Tony Scullion never did that in his life. I know that because we were life-long buddies on the training field and he played for Ballinascreen. He was talking about this and said, ‘ah sure I’d do it myself’! Complete rubbish! He tackled fair and square and had great battles with players but he would never have dreamt of pulling someone down0 . . . . .”
He says that he has received great support for his stance from the public at large.
“When I went back to Croke Park on Sunday, I was mobbed. I realise that a certain element may have relished the fact that I was criticising Tyrone but it also struck a chord with people all over.”
