A man putting his head where others wouldn’t put their boot and a linesman looking like he’s smoking a fag (he wasn’t); what more could you want in a GAA photo?
Ballyboden St. Enda’s enjoyed a narrow one-point victory over Cuala in the Dublin senior hurling championship quarter-final yesterday in a game that delivered one of our favourite GAA photos of the year so far.
We were alerted to its existence by one of the stars of the photo, Cuala player Shane Stapleton, currently a GAA reporter with the Daily Star and a former contributor to our own GAA podcast, Game of Throw-Ins.
Shane is the man in the red jersey you can see bravely showing scant regard for his own safety while trying to block down Ballyboden’s David O’Connor, but the most striking thing about the image is that it appears as if the linesman is enjoying a smoke for himself in the heat of the action.
Senior Hurling match yesterday. Sure there’s the linesman having a quick smoke #gaa pic.twitter.com/3X4iBjGseb
— Ciaran Doyle (@Doyler9) September 29, 2014
Photo credit: Kevin Maguire/Ballyboden St. Enda’s
While that would be somewhat understandable as being a linesman can be a stressful job, we have been assured by two JOE readers – Phil Kealy and Eamonn Stapleton – that it’s not a cigarette in his mouth (he doesn’t smoke, we’ve been told) but a pen or a pencil, even though it’s easy to think that it is in fact a fag on first glance.
There might not be cigarette in sight but it’s certainly a smokin’ photo and worthy of mention when one thinks about the GAA images of the year so far.
Hat-tip to Shane Stapleton, Ciaran Doyle, Phil Kealy and Sinead Ryan for the heads up on this one
