“I think people need to be more responsible” – Cheddar Plunkett stands up for the players

Cheddar Plunkett feels GAA pundits should be more responsible in their analysis in light of some recent loose commentary.

After Clare's defeat of Cork, joint manager Donal Moloney hit out at the intolerable attacks on his players. Ger Loughnane may well have been in the firing line. Well renowned for lowering the blade, the Feakle club man mowed the Clare team down after their disappointing losses to Tipperary and to Limerick. And Plunkett doesn't deem it acceptable. The Laois man was disappointed by Loughnane's 'gutless' comments but as is often the case, opened a much wider point here. Sensationalism, unfair personal criticism and other traits in modern day GAA punditry was used as the example but the effects they may have on certain players was the point.

"Aware is the organisation that looks after depression in Ireland," said Cheddar on Thursday's GAA Hour Hurling Show. "And they know more about that than anybody else. Their statistics on this is that one in ten people suffer from depression in a regular basis. If we take it that there are 50 people in the dressing room we can take it any given time that there are five people at any given time who may suffer some form of depression... "You're calling your own people as being gutless when you know that you could have people in a situation like that that drives them even further to despair and makes them more anxious than they are. I think it's very irresponsible."

Cheddar then went onto say that former players and managers are the general offenders and wondered whether they need media training. Then, he addressed Loughnane's comments.

"I want to talk about Ger for a minute first of all, because Ger made the point about Clare players being gutless , and he was talking about his own county and his own neighbours here being gutless. I'm old enough to remember the Clare team of the '70's that Ger played on. They won two national leagues in '77 and '78 , they were hammered by Limerick in the championship in '74, they were beaten by Cork in the Munster final in '77 and '78, they were hammered again by Limerick two or three years later.

https://twitter.com/TheGAAHour/status/1141759616759582721

"There was obviously no print media around at the time and certainly the print journalists, or social media around at the time, and the print journalists at that time had a massive amount of respect for players and that type of commentary didn't happen. I do remember, and I stand corrected on this, Ger a year or two ago speaking about that 70's team and he spoke really eloquently about them, now he seems to have a very different view about the current Clare team who have won an All Ireland, won a national league and you know are working really, really hard. "I think the performance of Clare this year had nothing to do with gutlessness and throwing away that sort of remark was irresponsible to be honest with you and you certainly cannot throw it away unless you can back up yourself with your won career that it didn't happen to me. 

You can watch Cheddar and the rest of the GAA Hour Show here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcTQ6kzDNC0