{"id":287157,"date":"2026-02-08T10:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T10:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287157\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T10:48:10","slug":"red-cards-for-barrett-and-forde-too-harsh-ben-oconnor-feels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/287157\/","title":{"rendered":"Red cards for Barrett and Forde too harsh, Ben O’Connor feels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red cards for Shane Barrett and Jason Forde in Saturday\u2019s Allianz HL Division 1A clash between Cork and Tipperary were a punishment far in excess of the crime, in the eyes of Rebels manager Ben O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

A melee coming up half-time in Cork\u2019s 0-29 to 0-22 win featured all 30 players but the two attackers were the ones collared by referee Liam Gordon, along with yellow cards for Alan Connolly of Cork and Tipp\u2019s Willie Connors, whose wrestling had started it all.<\/p>\n

Speaking after the game, O\u2019Connor lamented the fact that referees are constricted in such situations, not least because they will be punished in terms of assessment if they act differently to what is prescribed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not blaming Liam Gordon for anything,\u201d O\u2019Connor said, \u201cI’m blaming the GAA officials.<\/p>\n

\"CorkCork manager Ben O’Connor. Picture: Ray McManus\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

\u201cLast week, my words got twisted and turned. I was speaking to ye above in Galway after the match and RT\u00c9 had something on, I wasn’t even watching it, something above in Dublin on Sunday night about one of our players. My comments were twisted and turned. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I’m on about is, and when I say soccer, red card, yellow card, technical areas, you can’t go onto the field, can’t get a message in. So where are we getting all this from? We’re getting it from soccer. That’s where it’s all after coming from. No fella gets a belt.
\u201cA Fitzgibbon Cup match, I was watching it the other night, a University of Galway fella ran out, there was a UL fella in front of him, he went up to bat the ball. He got the ball and tapped your man on the back of the head, yellow card. Is that a yellow card? That’s what our helmets are for. How many years ago were we playing without helmets? <\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s no fella giving a fella a slap down on the head for no reason with a hurley. I said it outside there, we’re playing the fastest field game in the world, so if I’m going 100 miles an hour that way and there’s a fella turning and twisting and I put my hurley out and it gives him a tap, I didn’t mean to do that. We’re getting a yellow card for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’d two fellas sent off outside \u2013 we’re after seeing it below on the screen \u2013 two of them below are pulling jerseys, and we’ve two fellas that are training for the last six months and that’s the way they’re treated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrett and Forde were dismissed for the offence of contributing to a melee \u2013 unfortunately for the Blarney man, the fact that he was also red-carded in Cork\u2019s Munster SHC opener against Clare last April means that he is likely to be given a two-game suspension.<\/p>\n

\"WilliamWilliam Buckley signs an autograph for a fan after the game. Picture: Inpho\/Ben Brady<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m not here going fighting against the GAA or any of them, but I’m looking for the game to be played the way it should be played, and that’s just let the boys at it. If there’s a dirty belt, let them at it. The referee inside, a fella above sitting in the stand, and he telling the referee, \u2018You didn’t do that, you didn’t do that.\u2019 Ticking boxes, that’s what it is, ticking boxes, and we’re refereeing games by numbers now, that’s what it is.<\/p>\n

And the referee is so worried about, I won’t get a game again for the rest of the year, I have to tick the boxes. The best Munster final in memory for the last few years was Clare and Limerick [2022], John Keenan reffed it, obviously didn’t do what he was supposed to do that day. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone said safter what a great day out John Keenan had, brilliant match, brilliantly refereed, and he got no more matches after that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red cards for Shane Barrett and Jason Forde in Saturday\u2019s Allianz HL Division 1A clash between Cork and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1965,1964,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-287157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-hurling","9":"tag-cork-gaa","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}