Gym monsters, manly hurling and demanding managers

Today Hospital Pass looks at John Mullane's 'gym monsters', Pat McEnaney claiming hurling will be as physical as ever and Oisin McConville telling managers to relax ahead of the Championship.

By Declan Whooley

Pat McEnaney insists he isn’t trying to soften the game of hurling

While he has shipped criticism in some quarters for taking the physical element out of the game of hurling, referee chief Pat McEnaney has insisted he is not trying to “sanitise” the game of hurling.

Barry Kelly’s handling of the National League Final drew criticism from some observers  with yellow cards being dished out, and some are fearing that the physical element of the game is being weeded out. Not so says the Monaghan man.

“I’m not looking for red card offences, I don’t create red card offence. Players create red card offences and last year we had a minimum of 10 clear red card offences and we didn’t referee them correctly,” he told The Irish Examiner.

“I was a good referee for a man’s game… but some of the stuff we saw last year there is no place for it in the game of hurling,” he added.

No doubt he’ll be tuning in nervously to The Sunday Game every week over the coming season, the unofficial GAA judge and jury on disciplinary matters.

Mullane says ‘gym monster’ changing the game of hurling

John Mullane was always a straight-shooter on the pitch and his column for the Irish Independent is cut from the same cloth. Today he spoke about the ‘gym monsters’ as he described them, stating that it is no coincidence that the most successful sides are the most powerful and physical teams in the country, and he believes things changed dramatically in the 2006 All-Ireland decider and Cork’s quest for three-in-a-row.

Mullane says he was "blown away" in the 2008 All-Ireland Final

“You had Cork playing their running game, using small, nippy guys, with a handful of ball-winners thrown in to the mix. Kilkenny had to devise a plan to counteract this and the rest is history,” he said in his column.

He himself remembers clearly the difference between holding his own against Jackie Tyrell in the 2007 National League Final, before a year later when the Cats defender had become “a colossus, a monster of a man. Physically, he blew me out of it.”

It doesn’t look like changing anytime soon judging by the physical nature of the League.

McConville wants managers to take a chill pill

We can only imagine it will fall on deaf ears, but former Armagh forward Oisin McConville has called on inter-county managers to relax the demands on their players ahead of the Championship in relation to training.

“We hear a lot about burnout but that’s burnout due to training, not due to playing games. The more games these boys play the better, the sharper they get,” he said in The Irish Examiner.

“It’s ridiculous the amount of training we do in comparison to the amount of games we have in Gaelic football so from that point of view I’m all for it.”

As we said, how many of the managers listen to the latest RTE pundit is another matter.