Colm Cooper calls for “harsher penalties and more severe” punishments to stop brawls

"Are the GAA's penalties severe enough?"

After an unbelievable game, we are unfortunately forced to talk about the melee that broke out at full time between Armagh and Galway. The scenes were disgraceful in some instances, and it draws the eye away from the fantastic football that was on display. Speaking on The Sunday Game, Kerry's Colm Copper believes that the punishments need to be more severe if the GAA are going to stamp out this behaviour for good.

"Are the GAA's penalties severe enough? Are they dealing with these in an appropriate way?" he queried. "Are they doing enough? Because they come and we see them in club games, we see it in inter-county games."

He said that "harsher penalties and more severe" punishments were required, with the "disgraceful" eye-gouge as an example. "Two guys I have sympathy for and can't understand is Seán Kelly and Aidan Nugent," he said. Outside of that, the fact that the game was the first ever penalty shoot out in Croke Park, is almost a secondary talking point, but has proven to be just as controversial. Alongside Cooper was Tyrone's Sean Cavanagh, and he didn't hold back when voicing his opinion on finishing an All-Ireland quarter final in such a manner. https://twitter.com/TheSundayGame/status/1541170474633265152

"At this stage of the championship I think it's totally unacceptable to lose an All-Ireland quarter-final on penalties," he said. "It's not the fundamental skills of the game and we all were looking for more. Bringing those two teams to Croke Park next weekend would have been what everyone wanted.

"An extra week in the championship at this stage was in my mind, what should be happening here."