Clare and Galway have received a boost in advance of Saturday’s All-Ireland hurling quarter-finals with the collapse of the cases against Clare players, Rory Hayes and Peter Duggan and Galway’s Cianan Fahy at Wednesday’s meeting of the Central Hearings Committee.
The three players had been found to have cases to answer after the Munster and Leinster finals with the Clare duo proposed for one-match suspensions and Fahy for a two-match ban on the basis of video review.
Galway’s hearing came first and they challenged the procedural basis of the Central Competitions Control Committee meeting that had deliberated on Fahy’s alleged stamp on Kilkenny’s Richie Reid. The matter was eventually dismissed on those grounds.
Hayes’s and Duggan’s hearings were also dismissed for similar reasons. All three are now available to face Wexford and Cork, respectively, on Saturday.
Tony O’Reilly, Nell McCafferty, Ian Bailey and more: 50 people who died in 2024
Women are far more likely to re-gift unwanted presents than men
Restaurant of the year, best value and Michelin predictions: Our reviewer’s top picks of 2024
‘I personally only come here for the ladies’: Fog hits racing but not youthful glamour at Leopardstown
The outcome is a severe embarrassment for the GAA’s disciplinary system.