It's nearly a year on from Tiernan McCann hitting the Croke Park turf after having his hair tousled by Monaghan's Darren Hughes during the All-Ireland quarter-final.
Late in the game, Hughes was shown red when McCann theatrically fell to the ground. Many wondered if a stylist from Peter Mark would be called on to the pitch rather than a physio.
A year later and due to the incident involving Aidan O'Shea during Mayo's qualifier win against Fermanagh - which he denied was a dive - McCann was questioned about his simulation.
McCann sounded regretful of the moment when speaking to reporters at Tuesday's launch of the All-Ireland series.
Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing and we have all done stuff we would probably wished we hadn’t or done differently. That’s life, it is something I have had to learn from and move on.
It was difficult though. My family were on holiday in Portugal at the time, while I was at home, so it was tough. But it made me stronger as a person, and I just had to concentrate on the next game really because it was just two weeks later and then, after the Kerry game, that was the year over.
While he has misgivings about the dive, McCann also feels there were mitigating circumstances. It was late in the game, energy levels were low and perhaps cognitive functions were not at optimal levels.
Well, 70 minutes into a game, and we all know how tough the Monaghan game was last year, you are not even thinking about things.
Your fluids have gone, your energy levels are down, things happen that you can’t do anything about, and you just have to move on from it really. I’d hope people will talk about performances on the field rather than anything else really.
Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
