You can’t mouth words and then not live them when it’s your turn.
Cheddar Plunkett told a story about DJ Carey on The GAA Hour Hurling Show recently. When the Kilkenny man used to run his ‘School of Hurling’ courses for coaches and young players, he’d always have a chat with the coaches after each session.
One day, a particular coach asked DJ for his opinion on a mistake made by a referee in a football match the day beforehand. Inciting a reaction from DJ, the young coach berated the referee and didn’t spare him for his error.
The Kilkenny legend cut the ground from under the coach with his reaction.
“In fairness to DJ, and I’ll never forget this,” recalled Cheddar.
“He lit on the coach and he told him, ‘I’m in hurling ten or twelve years, I make piles of mistake on the field, but I’m never held to account for it. I’ve never known a referee to deliberately make the mistake, even though they make it. We just have to live with it and move on.'”
On Tuesday evening, the Kilkenny under-21s lost their Leinster under-21 semi-final to Galway. Two points separated the sides at the end of their Tullamore tussle. One clear point was taken away from Kilkenny due to a mistake by the umpire, one clear scoreable free was taken away from them because of a concentration lapse by the referee.
With Dicksboro forward Bill Sheehan bearing down on goal, Galway defender Shane Bannon leathered his elbow twice with smacks of the hurl.
As a result of the belts, Sheehan was forced to drop kick the ball before going down in pain. The ball went wide.
The referee issued Bannon with a yellow card. For some reason, he didn’t award the free and the move ended with a puckout for Galway.
Margins like these define games.
That could have made all the difference to the Cats but speaking to TG4 after the game, DJ Carey wasn’t in the mood for excuses. His response to Micheál Ó Domhnaill’s question about the referee’s mistake was the exact same as it was all of those years ago in Kilkenny.
Galway v Kilkenny U-21 Hurling Full-Time pic.twitter.com/qpHwfGkZOO
— The GAA (@officialgaa) June 20, 2018
No excuses. His team had plenty of chances to win that game, they made plenty of mistakes to be at one point trailling by seven.
“Ultimately, they either go for you or they don’t. We can’t have any complaints, if we were seven points up in the game we wouldn’t have any complaints,” he began.
“The game is over, we battled really hard. All we can do is wish the team that beat us the very best of luck in the rest of the championship, and that’s Galway.”
Not one to hold grudges, to scour for excuses, DJ was gracious in defeat.
“I played hurling myself. We made many, many mistakes on the field. There was mistakes made by both sides tonight. That’s sport, that’s why we love sport.”
DJ Carey ag caint le #GAABEO tar éis an chluiche. #GAA #TG4 @KilkennyCLG @Galway_GAA pic.twitter.com/WTZgHKNwCL
— GAA BEO TG4 (@GAA_BEO) June 20, 2018
That’s a man of his word.
His reaction will have been the same to the losing Kilkenny players in his dressing room speech after the game. They won’t be looking for excuses now. That’ll build them as characters.
That’s good management.
