THE CONDITIONS FOR the All-Ireland club football semi final between Glen and Kilmacud Crokes were called into question by both managers, with Robbie Brennan of Kilmacud stating, “If it was an oul Division 2 league game or championship match, it wouldn’t have gone ahead.”

Ultimately the decision lay with matchday referee Conor Lane, who inspected the pitch and the visibility. But with the TG4 cameras present, calling off a game of this magnitude would have been a shock.

However, it made things tricky for both sides.

“It was hard to see what was going on for a lot of it to be honest, it was bananas,” stated Brennan.

“But [it was] the same for Glen, you have to be hats off to them. But if that was round two of a local championship, it wouldn’t go ahead. You couldn’t see what was happening in the far corner, we could have turned it over and won the ball and you wouldn’t have known.

“But it was the same for Glen, I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses, they were far the better team on the day.” 

Brennan said he had not been privy to any consultation or discussion around the game going ahead.  

“Nothing, nothing. I certainly heard nothing from officials or anything like that,” he answered.

“Even at half time, it was getting worse and deteriorating. But it’s only a side issue, they were by far the better team and more power to them. 

“Again, I’ve said to everybody, it is not an excuse because we were beaten all over the park but it was a bit of a joke that it was played. It wasn’t playable.”

He then added that this was a failure of scheduling.

“Of course it is.

“You look at Thurles and half the pitch is frozen looking at it today on the telly and the other half is fine. It’s a calendar thing again.

“It should be finished in the calendar year. This game even is getting lost between O’Byrne Cup and stuff like that.

“It’s ridiculous it’s on this time of the year. No excuse at all and I don’t want that to sound like an excuse, beaten by far the better team.”

His difficulty was shared by Glen manager, Malachy O’Rourke.  

“It was (hard), to be honest, I couldn’t really see what was going on down in the bottom corner, the visibility was very poor.

“I suppose it was on the edge whether the game should have really been played or whatever, lookit we were just in the mindset that if it went ahead we were going to play it and give it all we had. It wasn’t perfect by any means but I suppose we are happy now.”

Glen won a famous victory amid the conditions, edging out Kilmacud 1-14 to 2-10.

Written by Declan Bogue. The Journal publishes the biggest breaking news in Irish and international sport but for all of The 42′s insightful analysis and sharp sportswriting, subscribe here.