{"id":472537,"date":"2026-05-29T05:45:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472537\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T05:45:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:45:13","slug":"fennell-laments-crazy-inconsistency-in-treatment-of-brennan-and-mcguinness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/472537\/","title":{"rendered":"Fennell laments ‘crazy’ inconsistency in treatment of Brennan and McGuinness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Dublin midfielder Eamon Fennell says the inconsistency in the treatment of manager Ger Brennan and Donegal boss Jim McGuinness<\/a> \u201cis a bit crazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brennan\u2019s St Vincent\u2019s club-mate and former county team-mate has no issue with McGuinness avoiding a penalty for pushing Kerry\u2019s Diarmuid O\u2019Connor at half-time in Killarney last Sunday.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in the context of Brennan receiving a 12-week ban for a physical exchange with a Galway coach that he continues to serve and will do beyond Sunday\u2019s All-Ireland SFC Round 1 game with Louth that Fennell has a problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese games are pretty heated, massively competitive and that\u2019s the way the sport has evolved. It\u2019s not the fact that Jim didn\u2019t get anything, it\u2019s missing Ger at such a key point of Dublin\u2019s transition is going to really hamper us as a county going forward. I really feel for Ger in this situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to take each case on its merits. Ger\u2019s obviously paid the penalty. Three months for what he did, I would have my own questions about that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that\u2019s the route that you\u2019re going to go with disciplinary action, then you have to look at each incident and there should be an implication but for it (McGuinness\u2019 push) not to have any implication? I thought it was a bit crazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt like the GAA weren\u2019t going to take any shit for lack of a better word around indiscipline and management interfering with players.<\/p>\n

\u201cGer\u2019s ban was severe enough and it obviously came before the provincials. He\u2019s already missed three games and this weekend and now we\u2019re in the business end and it now feels things have become lenient. A 12-week ban would have effectively ruled Jim out for the championship.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dublin meet Louth for the second time in four weeks after they knocked the 2024 Leinster winners out of the provincial championship in Portlaoise.<\/p>\n

Much has happened since though and Dublin losing a first Leinster final in 25 years (20 straight wins) will have knocked their momentum. \u201cFrom Ger\u2019s point of view, this is the game he would love given his massive connection with Louth,\u201d said Fennell. \u201cI don\u2019t know how much can change in such a short period of time but changes will be needed after the Leinster final.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dublin aren\u2019t expected to draw a huge crowd to the game, which Fennell knows from experience takes getting used to. \u201cGoing back to 2010 after we lost to Meath, we played Tipperary in our first qualifier game and their manager John Evans came into the dressing room after the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe couldn\u2019t believe the reaction we were getting from fans. They didn\u2019t turn on us but not having the support we once had in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a real turning point for us. As players, we could feel it but for the opposition to say they noticed it as well was really concerning. Sometimes, Dublin do rely on that support but when it\u2019s not there the opposition can get a new lease of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom that moment on, it was really only about the people in the dressing room at that time and supporting one another. Totally blocking out the external stuff and I think now more than ever that\u2019s a crucial piece for this Dublin group in unlocking the performance that they haven\u2019t yet done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can\u2019t be any weak link. There can\u2019t be any rumblings of people being pissed off or letting the outside noise affect their performance. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how they\u2019ve regrouped since the Westmeath game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fennell is buoyed by the form of Niall Scully, Cormac Costello and Brian Howard. \u201cScully and Cormac have been amazing and I think Howey has been really good in providing a platform in midfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving different people stepping up each time will be important if they are to make a run now. Sooner or later, Scully is going to be targeted in terms of squashing his influence. The same with Cormac, the same with Con (O\u2019Callaghan).<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the challenges for Dublin to date has been the lack of impact from the bench to drive the game home where we have had that luxury in recent years. Now more than ever you need to see who are going to pick up from what the likes of Scully, Cormac and Howey have been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Dublin midfielder Eamon Fennell says the inconsistency in the treatment of manager Ger Brennan and Donegal boss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1965,1128,61,60,850,112],"class_list":["post-472537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-hurling","tag-football","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472537","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=472537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}