Axes, Axes and more player axes

With the Championship beginning to crank into gear you’d imagine that inter-county camps would be full of harmony and players gathering around singing kumbaya. Instead, it seems, it’s the opposite.

We’re not privy to the inside of the London footballers camp but it would be perfectly understandable if at least one of their players was asking a question along the lines of ‘Can a brother get a break?’ at the moment.

By rights the Exiles should have been the toast of the GAA for all of this week and beyond after clinching their first victory in the provincial championship since 1977 at the weekend but instead their achievement has been overshadowed by controversy after controversy in that hotbed of controversy that is Connacht. Cromwell was right after all (joking, joking).

Eamonn O’Hara and Kevin Walsh are still slugging it out after the former’s caustic comments on The Sunday Game at the weekend and yesterday, scandal broke in Leitrim after it was revealed that four players had been dropped from the county panel for breaches of discipline in recent days.

The Leitrim Observer revealed yesterday that Wayne McKeon, Shane Moran and the Beirne brothers, Tomas and Conor, had been dropped from the panel, with a statement from the Leitrim County Board reading: "As a result of breaches of discipline that have fallen below the strict code of standards as agreed by team management and players, four panel members have been excluded from the Leitrim Senior Football panel.

"There will be no further comment issued by Leitrim GAA on this matter."

While there are no details given as to the exact breaches of discipline mentioned, it is thought that it might have something to do with the players involved having a few pints after club championship games in Leitrim at the weekend and not, as some have deviously suggested, some players going on the beer after finding out they will be playing London in the Connacht semi-final.

However it materialised it’s hardly ideal preparation for the novel Connacht semi-final meeting with London, a game that represents Leitrim’s best chance of making it to a provincial decider since they lost the first Connacht Final of the millennium to Galway in 2000.

That said, Paul Coggins and London are hardly complaining about all this carry on and as the cliché that The Sunday Game seem particularly keen to ham-up to the max this year goes, they'll be waiting in the long grass in Carrick-on-Shannon in a fortnight.

Far from whiter than lily-white in Kildare

Leitrim fans at least have the consolation of knowing that they’re not the only county to drop players for breaches of indiscipline this week as Kieran McGeeney has seen fit to drop a player from the Kildare panel for the second time in three years.

A couple of years back, Sean Hurley from Johnstownbridge was dropped by McGeeney for attending the Oxegen festival in Punchestown and after another breach of discipline, he won’t be involved against Offaly in Croke Park this weekend.

According to The Kildare Nationalist, Hurley was assigned to Kildare Juniors duty and actually scored a point in their comprehensive victory over Meath last night and his position in the senior panel will be reviewed following the meeting with the Faithful County this weekend.

The Kildare Nationalist report also mentions that three players from the Offaly panel, Ross Brady, Richie Dalton and Sean Pender, were dropped from the panel by manager Emmet McDonnell earlier this month for missing a training session.

It seems as far as inter-county football teams are concerned, mutiny abounds!