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'We're
taking this match awful seriously. We're training three times a week now, and some of the
boys are off the beer since Tuesday' -
Offaly hurler quote in the week before a Leinster hurling final vs. Kilkenny
'Ger Loughnane was fair, he treated us all the same during training-like dogs' - anonymous Clare hurler
"Is the ref going to finally blow his whistle?... No, he's going to blow his nose!" - Unnamed Radio Kilkenny commentator
'Any chance of an autograph? Its for the wife...she really hates you' - Tipp fan to Ger Loughnane
'I'm not giving away any secrets like that to Tipp. If I had my way, I wouldn't even tell them the time of the throw-in' -
Ger Loughnane on his controversial selection policy.
"Its all over... Clare are... Jeeeesus !!" - Matthew McMahon - Clare FM GAA commentator (during the Munster Final 1995)
"The cigarettes are being lit here in the commentary box, the lads are getting anxious, its a line ball down there to Clare and who's to take it?
... Will ye put 'em out lads yee'll choke me."- Matthew McMahon (during the All-Ireland 95)
'You can't win derbies with donkeys' - Babs Keating before Tipp played Corkin 1990
'Sheep in a heap' - Babs Keating description of Offaly in 1998
'Babs Keating 'resigned' as coach because of illness and fatigue. The players were sick and tired of him' - Offaly fan in 1998
'And as for you. You're not even good enough to play for this shower of useless no-hopers' - Former Clare mentor to one of his subs after a heavy defeat
'Babs Keating was arrested in Nenagh for shaking a cigarette machine,but the gardai let him off when he said he only wanted to borrow twenty
players' - Waterford fan after 2002 Munster final
'They have a forward line that couldn't punch holes in a paper bag' - Pat Spillane on the Cavan football team
'Meath players like to get their retaliation in first' - Cork fan 1988
'Meath make football a colourful game-you get all black and blue' - another Cork fan 1988
'Colin Corkery is deceptive. He is slower than he looks' - Kerry fan
'Life isn't all beer and football...some of us haven't touched a football in months' -Kerry player during league campaign 1980s.
A great piece written by a Meathman about
hurling....
"Coming from Meath, I don't know much about any sport other than football. I've seen
handball once. I've heard there's a game called 'rounders' and I'm even told that there's
a women's version of gaelic football, where they're allowed to pick the ball off the
ground and a point is worth three goals. But all I knew, until recently, about the other
sport administered by the GAA was that it involves the use of weapons and that only
Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork are allowed to play it. (For the information of football
people, Kilkenny, apparently, is a county in Leinster).
I've never met people from Kilkenny or Tipperary because those places are very far in off
the main roads, so the only hurling fans I've ever met were from Cork. (I can understand
why Cork people follow hurling, because I've seen their football teams). Anyway, these
people told me without being asked) that hurling is "de fastest field game in
de world (boy)" and "de most skilful sport of 'em all (like)". So I decided
that I should plug this gap in my education and rented a few tapes of big matches to try
and figure out how hurling works. I was immediately surprised to find out that, unlike
most field games, hurling doesn't involve the use of a ball. Look as closely as you like
at any game of hurling and you'll see no ball. At first, I thought the ball must be too
small and travelling at too great a speed to be visible to the naked, non-Corkonian,
Kilkennian or Tipperarian eye. But I quickly realised that hurling is, in fact, a
stick-breaking competition, in which the object of the game is to break your weapon, a
thick ash stick, either against your opponent's stick (like the reverse of the principle
of conkers) or, failing that, against his limbs, torso, head etc.
While the weapon remains unbroken, it is used to
weaken the opponent's resistance and thus make it easier to chase him down and improve
your chances of a successful break. The stick is called a hurley and there are three
parts to it - the warhead, which is the heavy end of the weapon, usually
reinforced with steel bands. It is used for cudgelling, bludgeoning and inflicting
contusions, concussion and localised damage to the head and body of the opponent; - the
blade this is the sharpened, curved part of the device, just above the warhead
area, which is effective in slicing through fleshy tissue and in routine amputation
applications; - the butt, which is the stabbing end of the apparatus,
used for tenderising the opponent's rib cartilage. The only protective equipment used is
the helmet. Helmets come in a variety of styles. Many players wear knee-pads tied to the
tops of their heads, some stick their heads up through the bottom of a canary-cage and one
lad from Cork wears a deep-fat fryer. The headgear also comes in various colours because,
apparently, no two players on any team are allowed to wear the same colour.
The game starts with two players from each side standing, fully armed, in the middle of
the field. On a signal from the referee, they start to beat each other about the ankles
with their sticks until the referee blows a whistle. When he blows it again, other sets of
combatants lay into each other, trying to break their sticks, either overhead against
their opponent's weapon in a sort of aerial fencing (known as "the clash of the
ash") or on the opponent himself (the gash of the ash). When a player succeeds in
breaking his stick - a smash of the ash - a huge roar goes up from the crowd, the
player waves his broken stick above his head in triumph and immediately he is thrown a
replacement weapon from a store that is kept on the sideline (the stash of the ash). The
crowd roars at other random occasions also, in what appears to be a side competition
between the two sets of supporters, because when they roar, a man in a white coat holds up
a white flag, in the manner of an umpire in football. If the roar is really loud, he waves
a green flag.
If a player manages to strike his opponent on the hand or in the stomach area, this is
known as a "dirty pull" and is one of the principal skills of the game. The only
form of violence not permitted is pushing an opponent in the back and referees deal
mercilessly with offenders against this rule. On the other hand, crippling, mangling,
maiming and disembowelling and all other forms of "lash with the ash" are
quite in order. The contest continues until there are no spare sticks left and the referee
declares a winner, presumably based on a combination of broken stick count and number of
casualties which, considering the weaponry deployed and the ferocity of the conflict is
usually remarkably few. As a result of this preliminary research, I came to a few obvious
conclusions: Kilkenny must be disarmed - by force if necessary; weapons inspectors must be
given access to Cork and Tipperary and there is finally an explanation for the fact that
the Romans never came to Ireland.
I discovered also that only teachers, students and policemen play the game. This makes
sense, everybody else has work to go to. One final mystery remains: where are the Gardai
when all this is going on? When will the blue lights flash on the clash of the ash?"
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