“The reason I want to talk about it is, you don’t want to see that ever on the field again.”
For Cian Lynch, on Sunday, his All-Ireland Final performance against Cork was everything Limerick fans would have craved for a mean at the peak of his hurling powers.
Lynch was phenomenal against the Rebels as he scored 0-6 and assisted for another 2-5 of Limerick’s scores in a final that was one-sided from the 10th minute on. John Kiely’s men played as if this was their first ever sniff of a Liam MacCarthy, not a side looking to win it for the third time in four seasons.
For all of the majesty of that Lynch performance, though, Colm Parkinson wanted to highlight a moment in the second half that Cork’s Tim O’Mahony was very lucky to escape unscathed from. Lynch and O’Mahony tangled near the sideline and it was the Cork star that was the recipient of what Parkinson referred to as a ‘judo move’.
On the latest episode of The GAA Hour [LISTEN from 14:00 below] Parkinson discussed that Lynch and O’Mahony incident with Paul Murphy and Damien Hayes.
Cian Lynch receives medical attention during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Cork and Limerick in Croke Park. (Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile)Lynch himself needed treatment after the coming together with O’Mahony while players from both sides waded into a fracas after it.
Referee Fergal Hogan consulted with his umpires before deciding to book both Lynch and O’Mahony, and William O’Donoghue for his part in the pushing and shoving that followed.
Parkinson felt Lynch had a superb game, and awarded him the show’s Performance of the Week accolade, but still felt the throw on O’Mahony merited discussion.
“Cian Lynch was having such a good game that this is a weird one,” Parkinson began.
“Usually you’d only do this when you’re frustrated or you’re pissed off. Well actually, what he did I’ve never seen on a GAA field before in my life. Yeah. So there’s a bit of a carry-on going on, Robert Downey flicks the hurl back at him which seems to piss him off.
“At the time when he got the clip on the leg with the hurl, Tim O’Mahony comes in and puts his hand, kind of over his shoulder, Cian Lynch grabs his arm and flips him over like a judo move, and dumps him down on his head. Yeah. Like I mean, it’s a straight red card all day long surely.”
“Yeah,” Paul Murphy agreed, “it was a terrible tackle and, you know, O’Mahony is lucky.
“I was looking at it going, ‘Jesus, he’s lucky he didn’t break his neck there’. My God. But I think when you see it afterwards, it was a leveraging him over (movement.) Now people have referenced rugby saying if that was rugby would it be a red card? It would, but you expect to see it in rugby. There’s precedent in rugby. Where you’re picked up and you’re not holding the player as he goes to the ground.
“But, Cian Lynch dumped him over. I don’t think Cian Lynch expected him to land on his neck. He kind of wanted to throw him over. Never-the-less, he landed.”
Only Lynch himself could tell you what was going through his mind at the time, but Parkinson believes Lynch flipping O’Mahony over his shoulder was dangerous.
“Cian lay down then on the ground,” Parkinson continued, “and he let on that he was hurt himself. A little bit like Peter Casey did the time with Gleeson, and we all agreed that there was very little in that and we defended Peter Casey. It’s very hard to defend this… He definitely meant to grab his arm and flip him over and there’s only one way you’re heading down there and that’s down on your head.”
Damien Hayes says Lynch probably was frustrated after getting the flick from Downey but he does not believe Lynch ‘meant to put him down on his neck’.
Another issue for Parkinson was how the incident was not giving much air-time by The Sunday Game.
“When a team wins and are so impressive,” he said, “you don’t want to take away from their moment of glory and you don’t want to tarnish it but you have to. If you want to do it right, you have to do it.
“Like I mean, remember last week, John Small was being slated because Dublin lost, if Dublin had won that might have been brushed because, ‘Aw let’s not take away from a win’. Do you know, you can’t do it like that.”
