Martin O’Neill issued a spiky response when he asked if he had seen the chaotic scenes on the Parkhead pitch after Celtic snatched the Scottish title from Hearts on Saturday but admitted there may be trouble ahead for all concerned.
As he looks to add the Scottish Cup to his trophy collection in what will probably be his final game as manager next weekend against Dunfermline, the man who rescued Celtic twice this season reflected on an incredible day.
Having led the way all season, Hearts saw their title hopes evaporate in the final minutes of the winner-take-all clash as Daizen Maeda grabbed the second Celtic goal with three minutes left before Callum Osmand added a third to prompt a pitch invasion.
Hearts have called on the Scottish FA to investigate the chaos that followed but O’Neill was adamant it was not something he had witnessed after the most dramatic title win of his career.
“No, I have not seen the scenes. I didn’t say I’ve seen the scenes, you can’t tell me I must have seen them,” he told one journalist at his after-match press conference, as reported by the Daily Record.
“Sorry, I genuinely didn’t see the scenes at the end because I’m there, I thought the game wasn’t over so I’m trying to push our fans off the pitch again to play whatever’s left.
“I think the fourth official had said to me that there was a minute to go when we scored the goal. With the best will in the world, they’re not going to get two goals in that time.
“But I didn’t see the incidents. Obviously there’s a lot of commotion in the tunnel so I don’t know. Obviously if Hearts players have been accosted by some of our fans, that’s pretty serious.”
O’Neill did shake hands with opposite number Derek McInnes after the game but their conversation went no further.
He added: “No, I haven’t had a chance to speak to him. Whoever was going to win the game I imagine the same scenario would have happened.
“Derek would have been on the pitch with his team and I would have been sitting in a room with a towel over my head.”
Asked about unfounded claims that the match never ended properly due to the pitch invasion, O’Neill said: “I was asking one of the linesmen in the tunnel and he said it’s over, but I didn’t know that.
“Derek came over to me and shook my hand and he said well done. Then was probably the moment I thought well the game must be over. But I didn’t know. Honestly, I’m not pushing it to the side. It will be something that the officials will have to look at.”
Hearts, whose players left within 20 minutes of the final whistle and didn’t do any media, issued a tense statement after the game which read: “Heart of Midlothian utterly condemns the shameful scenes at Celtic Park this afternoon which have, once again, embarrassed Scottish football.
“Reports of serious physical and verbal abuse towards our players and staff, both on the pitch and elsewhere, are deeply disturbing. We are investigating this fully and are in dialogue with Police Scotland. We will make no further comment at this time other than to say that it is completely unacceptable that our players and staff were put in that situation.
“Given the menacing and threatening atmosphere inside the stadium, our entire staff had no alternative but to leave immediately, without undertaking post-match media duties. To our media partners, we apologise but the safety of our staff was our prime focus during these unacceptable scenes.
“The pitch invasion caused a chaotic end and nobody seemed to know whether or not the match had been brought to a finish. Our players were then denied the opportunity to thank our magnificent fans - sensational to a person - for their backing this afternoon and all season long.
“We expect the strongest action possible to be taken by the footballing authorities in the interests of protecting the safety of players and supporters, and the integrity of our game.”
Jack Moylan probably still has his Ireland shirt on after becoming the first player in 39 years to score a hat-trick on his debut in the green jersey as he hit three against Grenada in Saturday’s 5-0 win with Tom Cannon grabbing the other two.
Moylan was still in a state of shock when he spoke to the media after his heroics in Murcia according to a report in the Irish Sun.
And he revealed his hope that the three second-half goals had brought his father to tears in the Spanish sunshine.
Lincoln City promotion winner Moylan told the paper: “I was in a state of shock at the end of the game. Don’t think it has set in. I was sitting in the dressing room for 20 minutes without a single thought in my head.
“I know it is a cliche but you do dream of these days as a kid. Lads in the dressing room have played 50 games. It might not have meant anything to them but it meant the absolute world to me.
#“I don’t really like that saying, ‘it is just another game’. It’s not. I am immensely proud to play for my country. I might never ever do it again ,I might do it 100 times, you have to embrace it.
“Sitting in my hotel room all day, I knew it could go one way or the other. You can have a really bad game and it could go against you but you have to back your quality. It’s the best day of my life.”
The Sun’s Neil O’Riordan reported that Moylan was still wearing his match shirt in the interview as his new found confidence inspired that second-half revival. He added: “I’ll probably wear it home on the flight and all day tomorrow.
“In the last two or three years maybe I would have caved in at half-time after missing two or three chances. You’d be going back out for the second-half, you are thinking ‘that was it, that was your moment.’
“But you keep your head, stick to basics, do what you’ve been doing since kicking the ball against a wall from the age of five. They were basic finishes but you have to keep your head.”
As for those tears, he said: “I don’t know if my dad will remember this, he’s probably not the most emotional man in the world, but he told me as a kid that he’d only ever cry if I scored for Ireland. I’d better see a big red face on him!
“The manager said to me afterwards - make sure you keep your jersey. Don’t ever give it away. Make sure it’s up on the wall. And it will be. My missus will probably be sick of it, I’ll have it right up on the wall in front of the kitchen table.”
‘When you stop money flowing, it certainly gets an awful lot more serious’ – Patrick O’Donovan on standing his ground against LOI
Sports Minister Patrick O’Donovan has defended his tough tactics in response to the pyrotechnics damage on the new Dundalk pitch after flares were fired by Drogheda supporters at the Louth derby back in February.
O’Donovan, who was at the game, responded by freezing all funding to LOI clubs until he was satisfied that the League of Ireland and all concerned would take corrective action against such behaviour.
In an extensive interview with Sunday Independent sports editor John Greene, published on the Irish Independent website, Minister O’Donovan has defended his actions.
“People are trying to provide better facilities for kids and young people and to improve the quality of the game and this goes on and nothing happens,” he said.
“So I had a choice. I could either continue along, that I saw nothing and adapt a kind of three wise monkeys [approach], hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing, which there seems to have been quite a lot of.
“Or I could decide to take the route that I went, which was to inform the league and inform my officials that I was not happy. [That] something had to change and until I got an assurance that something was changing and this was being taken seriously, everything was stopped and the handbrake was being pulled up.”
Asked about the negative backlash from LOI fans, he added: “I was prepared for it to be honest. I thought it would be an awful lot worse. One way to really heighten people’s radar is to mention the word money coming out of government. And when you threaten to remove money, or in my case, stop money flowing, it certainly gets an awful lot more serious.
“If I had issued a kind of a milk and water statement saying isn’t this terrible and it shouldn’t happen again it would probably have got, you know, a quarter inch column somewhere close to the buy and sell at the back of the paper, but it wouldn’t have made any real meaningful difference.
“We were very lucky we weren’t dealing with a far worse situation.”
Dundalk boss Ciaran Kilduff has described Friday night’s 1-0 win over Premier Division leaders Shamrock Rovers as the biggest of his time at Oriel Park - and apologised to the photographer whose camera he smashed celebrating Tyreke Wilson’s late goal.
Ironically the camera belonged to photographer Peter Minogue, father of Dundalk ‘keeper Enda, according to a report in the Irish Independent by James Rogers.
“Tyreke is a special footballer, one I’m so happy to have at the club. I did speak to him before the game, I just felt the pockets that he can pick up - he’s a clever player - and as a left wing back, I didn’t expect that, but I did think he’d get opportunities to shoot and he has scored some goals this year for us,” said Kilduff.
“I broke Enda Minogue’s da’s camera in the celebrations as well. There was chaos on the sideline and I went to boot a ball and I kicked it straight at him so there’ll be an invoice coming to (Dundalk owner) Chris Clinton in the next 24 hours and I hope he pays it because it looked a nice camera.
“The goal was fitting to win the game though I felt, and if you’re going to see it out, you might as well see it out in the drama that we did between Enda Minogue’s saves, the post, everything. You’re hanging on but what a win.”
Train travel issues aside, Manchester City remain on track for the trouble with boss Pep Guardiola adamant that the title battle with Arsenal and their slim hopes of catching the Gunners is all that matters to him now.
A late goal from Antoine Semenyo saw City lift the Cup on Saturday when the only consolation for Blues fans was the news afterwards that Xavi Alonso is on his way as manager.
The Irish Examiner reports that Guardiola insisted there would be no Cup celebrations after the game with a match at Bournemouth on Tuesday to come as they chase down title favourites Arsenal.
“Home – not even one beer,” said the City manager. “Next Monday, after Aston Villa, we’re going to celebrate with the women’s team with a parade in Manchester, but no, we do not have time now.
“Chelsea had seven days to prepare for the final, we had three days and yesterday was a nightmare. We spent literally six hours getting from Manchester to here. The trains are a little bit of a problem in this country. Six hours!”
