The only rule is that there are no rules, except for all of those unwritten ones.
That seems to be the attitude held by Wexford manager Liam Dunne, who has dropped forward Jack Guiney from his panel to face Kilkenny after the youngster apparently enjoyed a night out in the aftermath of the Model County’s Leinster quarter-final win over Westmeath.
Guiney has excelled for Wexford in the last few years but Dunne questioned his commitment in an interview with South East Radio.
“No, unfortunately Jack won’t be involved,” Dunne said in quotes reported by the Irish Mirror.
“In the group there are no rules. I don’t make rules because rules are there to be broken and I have said that before. I have done the same with Wexford, I made no rules for anybody, but we set standards and the players set standards as you go along, and players buy into it. If you don’t want to come up to that standard or if you can’t give the commitment required, this set up is nowhere for you to be. And, at the moment, Jack just can’t give that commitment. I would love to have Jack Guiney, the players would love to have Jack Guiney, the management would love to have Jack Guiney but I am not so sure that Jack wants us as much as we want him.”
So according to Dunne, there are no rules – so you CAN go for a night out, technically. But you better not, or else you will be dropped.
For the sake of transparency, all GAA managers might as well get their players to sign draconian behavioural contracts if the alternative is to say there are no rules, but then punish players for breaking these non-existent measures.
Sunday Game presenter Des Cahill made an interesting comparison between the treatment of Guiney and the attiude taken by the Chile manager towards star player Arturo Vidal, who was kept on the team for the Copa America despite being arrested for drink-driving.
Contrast this with amateur student Jack Guiney, dropped by #Wexford.
Chile coach won't omit Vidal due to "a mistake"http://t.co/ES5JUUe2Lx
— Des Cahill (@sportsdes) June 18, 2015