Cork City edged their top-of-the-table clash with Dundalk at Turner's Cross last night: Gearoid Morrissey's second-half volley won it for Cork, an in doing so pushed the champions three points clear of Dundalk.
For those watching on RTE, among the highlights of a hectic, scrappy game was Brian Kerr's second-half missive on the state of the Turner's Cross pitch. Kerr believed that the poor surface contributed to an average game, and said that one of the "maddest" half-time periods he's ever seen exacerbated the situation.
Over the course of his declaration, Kerr pointed to the state of one of the goalmouths...
...and the number of people on the pitch at half-time.
It was one of the maddest half-time periods I've ever seen in a League of Ireland match. There were four five-a-side matches going on with kids, and that's fine; fair enough. But there were another 60 people out on the pitch. Now, the pitch isn't in great nick, it's been battered by the bad weather over the last couple of months. There were some schools matches on it during the week.
No wonder the pitch isn't in great shape.
There was actually a crossbar challenge thing going on at one end of the pitch, all seven subs were out on the pitch with the coaches, there was a bit of work going on too.
Look at that goalmouth. That was the goalmouth where the crossbar challenge was going on, with six people standing on the edge of the box with a commentator. I don't know what's it about. I thought the first thing should be is to get the pitch in good nick.
There's the half-time scene, George. Look how many people are on the pitch. It's madness. If the pitch is not in good nick, keep it to the minimum at half-time. Yes, the subs can warm up. But all the other stuff shouldn't be going on. I'm glad to see kids playing 5-a-side, not doing fierce amounts of damage. But maybe when the weather is a bit better, the pitches are a bit firmer and when we have better grass growth.
We're now saying, 'the game isn't great'. Is it a contributing factor? Yes!
Earlier this season, Kerr called for Dundalk's all-weather pitch to be banned.
