Sideline Cut: It must be interesting being Gerry Quinn this weather. Not precisely pleasant, perhaps, but decidedly interesting. Remember Gerry? One of the brighter members of the Clare hurling renaissance which was an unexpectedly joyful sporting story and a welcome tonic to the post-Japan traumatic stress disorder which lay heavily across the country, writes Keith Duggan

Clare, older and, sadly, quieter, but back hurling with the steel will that was too often listed as their only asset and the brilliant flourishes that were too seldom acknowledged by the purists who were sniffy about the Banner in the way that wine critics are sniffy.

Gerry was the latest in Clare's seemingly inexhaustible supply of impenetrable and stoic wingbacks. He had a fine old season, and then had his hand cleaved by an opponent in the All-Ireland semi-final with Waterford.

It must have been terribly upsetting for the less stern of constitution in the corporate boxes. There was no F1 on that day, so they were probably actually watching the game. What's that protruding from his . . . it's not . . gosh, bone. . . ugh.

Clare were more voluble and animated about that incident than they were about anything else in the campaign. This generation of Clare hurlers once were to frank discourse what the current generation of Kerry footballers are to silence (only the Order of the Poor Clares spoke less throughout the championship season). But this year, back in the big time, the Clare players fought their natural instinct to express themselves, to talk about what it was to get on a roll in the championship a year or two after most of us suspected their dynasty had ended.

But in the half-hour after Gerry Quinn got his hand broken, some of them let fly. They were pissed off that their team-mate, affable and fun around the dressing-room, was probably not going to get to play in an All-Ireland final. They were angry about the stroke that caused the injury, angry because they felt it was deliberate and that it went unpunished.

All the old resentments from 1998, when Clare felt they were prodded and pushed into a corner by the establishment and embarked on an energy sapping and futile crusade of lost causes, resurfaced during what ought to have been an hour of pure celebration.

It was easy to understand their frustration. After the Munster final replay four years ago, every stray stroke of theirs was scrutinised and analysed and criticised in every quarter.

Some saw them as perpetual whiners, others as victims of the establishment. In retrospect, it is fair to say they were more sinned against than otherwise. It is also probable that the mental strain of arguing the toss and the siege mentality that enveloped the team cost them a second All-Ireland. When they eventually lost, it was with graciousness, but the worldview of that team changed after that season. They learned their world was a less joyful, less innocent place than they had believed.

So, four years later, a Clare player is left with a broken hand and even God is looking the other way. Naturally, they are up in arms.

In typical fashion, they turned adversity around, with Quinn, after having a pin inserted in his hand, declared fit to start just hours before the All-Ireland final. He was one of their best performers in what was a respectable but curiously passionless final from a Clare perspective.

It was a great relief to everyone, including, one assumes, the perpetrator of the attack on Quinn, that the player recovered in time to at least participate in the All-Ireland.

But the conclusion to the Quinn story is unsatisfactory. Quinn knows the identity of the player that pulled across him. Indeed, it seems most people do. But, like everyone else called before the GAC this week to give evidence, Quinn kept his silence.

But what else could he do? Asking the player to name the guy who injured him is akin to asking a school kid to squeal on another. It is unfair.

Quinn would doubtless like to see some sort of punishment for a foolish and violent act that could have ended his career. But should he really have been asked to identify the culprit? In a court of law, this would be normal procedure.

But the circumstances here are different. Within the GAA there has always existed a certain covert blood lust. A few decades ago, managers and pundits never tired of assuring everyone that football was a man's game, that hurling was a man's game. Hardness, the ability to give and take a belt, was a prerequisite.

We should be thankful that in Gaelic games there generally exists an honesty and nobility when it comes to physical contact; that players do not resort to playing for the foul in a way that often makes soccer a laughing stock. The opposite principle still holds true in Gaelic games; players fight the instinct to fall, often after the whistle has gone.

But the issue of random violence is grey. A lot of amateur players, especially in hurling, bear the lasting scars of shockingly violent acts. In his autobiography, Nicky English details one such incident in gruesome detail. Possibly for legal reasons, he does not name the player, but it is probable he would decline to in any case. That omerta has always existed. It is just not the way.

Gerry Quinn will, luckily, have to play against Waterford again in the not too distant future. It will be an awkward moment for both Quinn and the aggressor.

I did not see what happened to Gerry Quinn, I wasn't even in the country at the time. But the Clare player claims that his hand was badly damaged through a belt that was intentional and no one has contradicted that.

Nobody but the guy who swung the hurl knows why he did it. In sports, things fall apart. Athletes do foolish things. All that can be said for certain is that Waterford under Justin McCarthy are a team of clean hurlers. The felling of Gerry Quinn was an aberration, borne off frustration or madness or God knows what.

But it was wrong. So today in Clare they are left to nurse their grievances after taking flak from the GAC for failing to identify the guilty party. The Waterford authorities also claim to be unable to shed any light on the incident. The thing is at stalemate.

I feel sorry for Gerry Quinn in all of this and also, in a curious way, for the guy who pulled across him. It can't have been one of the prouder moments in his life and he must be feeling deeply uncomfortable as this charade of blindness goes on.

There is one way to end it and it is the toughest, bravest way imaginable. That is for the man who struck Gerry Quinn to stand up and admit it. Apologise and ask the GAC to throw the punishment book his way. It would not be easy, but it would take real bravery and would cause all those afflicted with blindness at that precise moment to think hard about themselves.

It would be something that everyone would applaud, even Gerry Quinn, now that he is able to again.