Having been accused of suggesting Mayo's Cora Staunton 'intimidated' referees ahead of yesterday's All-Ireland decider in Croke Park, Dublin's Mick Bohan has since revealed that he was 'hurt' by the manner in which his words were misconstrued.
Speaking to Newstalk's Oisin Langan after Dublin's victory yesterday, Bohan sought to clarify the situation:
Well, first of all the word was influence, and it was misinterpreted.
I was actually paying a compliment to Mayo on game-management. Unfortunately, if you're having a football discussion sometimes, and the whole conversation isn't repeated, it can be taken up wrong, and I was actually quite hurt over it.
Stressing that he was 'very proud' about the way Dublin chose to do their business, Bohan was unwavering in his opinion that he,
wasn't trying to influence anyone nor was I was trying to put somebody's name down. ... I had a conversation with people that I didn't realise was going to be used in a certain way, and unfortunately that's the way it is.
Questioned on why he bothered to mention Staunton in the first place, Bohan remained firm that he was simply paying the four-time All-Ireland winner a compliment:
Well basically I was talking about Cora's game-management. ... Ultimately she is terrific at that, terrific at gaining frees at opportune times in the game.
She's very good at controlling the tempo of the game - that's a compliment.
I said it as part of a conversation with a group of journalists when I was talking about football. Ultimately, what has it taught me? I've learned a lesson from it and I can't have a conversation like that, because people will zone in on the negatives of it.
Whether Bohan will now enforce as steadfast a policy on media interaction as his counterpart Jim Gavin remains to be seen.
While he maintained that his words were intended as a compliment to Staunton, Bohan did not offer any practical reasoning as to why he was discussing this contentious topic in the first place.
Mayo's Frank Browne believes Bohan's words did ultimately have an effect on yesterday's proceedings. While not wishing to take away from Dublin's victory whatsoever, his reading of the first half left him unhappy with referee Seamus Mulvihill:
Without a doubt [it had an impact] because at one stage in the first half of the game the free count was something like 14 Dublin fouls against 6 of ours, yet we were looking at two people in the sin-bin.
Although Browne conceded that there could have been little excuse for tackle that resulted in Yvonne Byrne's yellow-card, his consternation with Mulvihill's decision-making was evident.
See Also: 'It Is So Hard Not To Think Of Those People' - Sinead Finnegan On The Emotion Of Dublin's Triumph
