‘They’re a distraction’ – Barry Cahill on players outside of the 26-man panel being on the pitch

"You don’t want these guys."

A lot has been said about the melee that broke out between Armagh and Galway at full time in yesterday's quarter final. The main consensus is that it was disgraceful scenes that tainted an unbelievable match, a game for the ages that should go down in history for all of the right reasons. Speaking on the latest episode of the GAA Hour, former Dublin star Barry Cahill noticed one other thing that shouldn't even have been a problem during all of this.

"It needs to be stamped out and obviously there was a couple of players there involved, seen from the Armagh side, outside of their 26-panel, which they have absolutely no business being there. 

"In my time with Dublin, we would have had a panel of 35-40 players training every night, but obviously you only have 26 on the match day, and it would be 26 that would travel to the game, tog out, and the guys who were the extended panel, might meet up with us after the match. "But we wouldn’t have them around on the actual day itself, but a couple of those guys, they actually ran about 100 yards, you know, from where they were sitting on the hogan stand, to get out onto the Cusack." The presenter and former Kerry star Darran O'Sullivan, was also in agreement with the match day panel issue.

"I couldn’t understand where they were going, like genuinely, I was there watching it, like… because the whole point of the squad is subs being off the pitch, and now the less numbers on the pitch is probably for these reasons, that when things get heated, it’s less people involved.  "When I could see them coming over, I couldn’t understand, like where are they going, like?

"You don’t want these guys… like no disrespect, you don’t want them in the dressing room, because they’re no good to you at that time." "They’re a bit of a distraction if anything, you know?" Added Cahill. "But the eye gouging incident is disgraceful. And like, it was on Damien Comer, who was one of Galway’s key players, if Comer had reacted with a punch or something like that, and a referee or a linesman saw, Comer would have been getting a red card, and gone for the extra time, and probably would have cost them the match."