Laois hurling boss Brennan calls for GAA to get tough on rouge county training offenders

Laois hurling boss Eddie Brennan has echoed the views of Offaly GAA Chairman Michael Duignan and urged the GAA to get tough on Counties who go rogue and start back training before the designated September 14 date.

Brennan has been vocal both in words and on social media recently and has called on the GAA and counties to play by the rules and create a level playing field for 2020.

There has been no shortage of rumours doing the rounds about counties going against the grain and organising collective training but the former Kilkenny sharp-shooter has insisted that he has been sticking by the rules.

Speaking to Pat Nolan and the Irish Daily Mirror, the Garda hit out at the GAA’s comments that offending counties would not be punished.

 “I haven’t seen them (Laois hurlers) physically since the 12th of March when all this kicked in. A little bit of Zoom is all we’ve been doing, just catching up with lads.

“If I’m to be utterly selfish and apply my situation, the Laois county final is fixed for the 26th or 27th of September, the Dublin one is fixed for the 13th so straight away you’re at a disadvantage.

“The Wexford situation still hasn’t been clarified, is the Wexford county final going to be played at the end of August, like the Waterford one?

“In that sense, it’s not a level playing field and, in a year of extraordinary circumstances, let’s give everyone the exact same crack at it.

“You’d like to be doing something with the players but, the reality is, the players are with their clubs and that directive was sent out.

“But then we have this farcical situation where they turn around and say there’s no sanctions for it so for me it’s a Pontius Pilate job from the hierarchy of the GAA.”

Making rules and having no consequences when they are broken is not something that Brennan takes a positive view on. The former All Ireland winner doesn’t think that expulsion from the championship is too harsh either.

 “I think it’s a fair sanction. The reality is, if you’re going to make rules, there has to be a punishment for them. It’s just a mad situation.

“The top brass of the GAA, John Horan or whoever, all they’ve done is basically say, ‘Do you know what lads, we don’t want to get involved in the dirt of it, we don’t want to have this blot on our copybook. Do we want to get involved in going after counties and hopping off them? No, we don't, so let them fight it out themselves, let’s wash our hands of this’.

“But yet they saw fit to, a few years ago, punish the Laois footballers which John Sugrue was very, very outspoken about and rightly so. They got punished for putting their hand up and saying, ‘Do you know what, we did train’.

“Meanwhile, you had other teams that offered farcical excuses and it was just accepted so the message there was, ‘Be sneaky and deny everything and it’s all ok’. It’s frustrating to see that.

 “People can interpret what I’m saying as a whinge - it’s not. It’s the reality of what’s going on in GAA circles at the moment and, for me, the leadership of the GAA have been found badly wanting here.”

 “Nobody knows what’s around the corner - this could be your last year playing inter-county.

“To some extent, managers and county boards are the ones that need to show leadership here and Michael Duignan put it very bluntly - they need to grow a set”.