GAA News

The revelations regarding the brawl in Portlaoise on Sunday continue, plus we now have video footage of the incident.

The continuing fallout from Sunday’s Junior Football All-Ireland semi-final between Kerry's Dromid Pearses and Tyrone's Derrytresk dominates the front and back pages today, with Dromid Pearses manager Michael Anthony O'Connell offering some startling revelations in the Irish Independent.

“We were beaten by unfair tactics. At the start of the game, three of my players were caught by the testicles," Mr O'Connell said.

"When our fellas went to shake hands with them, the Derrytresk went for their testicles and pulled them at the start of the game. That conduct has no place on a football field. What they wanted was for our players to retaliate, but we are better than that."

Yesterday we brought you the news that four of the Dromid players were injured in the brawl, including Kerry star Declan O’Sullivan, who was hit by a handbag during the game.

But much more seriously his team-mate Thomas Curran was concussed after a blow he received in the melee. He is wearing the number nine maroon shirt in the clip above.

“Thomas Curran played the last six minutes of the first-half and was concussed but I had no idea about that,” said O’Connell in today’s Irish Examiner. “He was inside in the dressing-room at half-time and telling his brother to get the milk out of the fridge. The man thought he was at home in Dromid, he didn’t know where he was at all.

"One of our substitutes, Micheal O’Shea, saw Thomas getting hit and went in to help him. He reckoned if he didn’t, they would have killed him. Then there was five of them who got Denis Shine on the ground as well. They fractured his cheekbone, ripped the jersey off him and drove the boot into his back. His back is destroyed, he could barely move yesterday."

The GAA are now waiting for Leitrim referee Francis Flynn to submit his match report today before deciding what course of action to take regarding the incident.