Austin Gleeson has been cleared to play in the All-Ireland final, and will face no further action for ripping Luke Meade's helmet from his head during Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final.
The rules dictate that it was a straight red-card offence, which would have also meant a one-match ban that would fall on the biggest match of all. No card was given, however, meaning Gleeson could finish the game - but would face an anxious wait to see if the referee included the incident in his report. Were it included, the CCCC would rule as to whether Gleeson would serve a ban.
Should that have arisen, it would seemingly confirm to Waterford that bad things happen in threes: Stephen Bennet and Tadhg de Burca have both served bans this summer for the same offence.
He has got off, however, as referee James Owens has felt that he dealt the incident at the time. This is, by the rules, an error by the referee: by omitting the incident from the report he is stating that he felt he dealt with it at the time.
There has been a level of division over the issue among GAA fans, and Kilkenny's Eddie Brennan pointed out the problem with the decision. The Kilkenny legend was on the Sunday Game after the incident, and while he said he had no desire to see Gleeson miss the final, he was unequivocal on the fact that the incident was a red card offence.
Following today's news, he tweeted that Gleeson's Tadhg de Burca has been a victim of a miscarriage of justice:
In fairness to the CCCC on the first tweet: they did not make a judgement on either the De Burca or the Gleeson incident. But there is undoubtedly an inconsistency in the application of the rule.
