IT’S Mrs. Doyle from Craggy Island I feel sorry for as the traditional Irish cup of tea takes a hammering in the name of Meath football and Irish golf. What would she make of it all, at all, at all?

On Monday morning, at a very posh and very fine golf club, yet another waiter offered me a teabag in a teacup after I had asked for a pot of their finest Barry’s.

Now my regular reader will know that I am on something of a crusade at the moment with regard to the fine art of tea making and its decline in the Irish market.

Once upon a time, you could lay your life on such an order producing a nice silver teapot, in color anyway, complete with at least a couple of Mr. Barry’s best tea-bags inside. Not anymore.

Too many Irish establishments are happy now to throw a teabag and a cup at the paying customer, something of a big bear of mine now that I am halfway through middle age if you know what I mean.

Anyway, back to sport and the weekend’s offerings when teabags of a different nature were the subject of attention in one of the country’s top events, one that will be spoken about for many years to come.

On Sunday afternoon the footballers of Dublin and Meath did what they always do. They engaged in a bit of a shemozzle under the rules of the GAA as laid down by our forefathers all those years ago.

Despite all the hysterical outbursts here at home in the hours that have followed, there was nothing that unusual about the series of rows that dominated the National Football League Division Two proceedings at Parnell Park.

Even the early outbreak of hostilities was par for the course. Just a couple of years ago, for example, the big Dublin midfielder Ciaran Whelan decked a Meath player as they awaited the throw-in and flattened him.

Whelan got away with it on that summer’s afternoon at Croke Park. He didn’t get away with the same sort of act on Sunday. And he was in good company.

By the time Whelan was red carded by referee Paddy Russell in the 14th minute, for an altercation with a Meath defender, two players from each side had already been banished to the sideline.

They walked the walk after an all-in brawl in only the fourth minute of the game, dismissals that may yet have serious repercussions for both teams and all concerned.

By Tuesday morning the Irish Independent was able to tell us, via my good friend Colm Keys, that eight players from Dublin and eight more from Meath face suspensions running up to two months in duration for their part in the Parnell pandemonium. The Dublin and Meath county boards have also been fined &20,000 each.

Some will miss the opening rounds of the championship, several Dublin players will miss Saturday night’s Division Two NFL final against Westmeath, in Navan of all places.

All, it seems, are going to pay a heavy price for an outbreak of violence that has been rounded upon by GAA President Nickey Brennan and a host of outraged do-gooders across all spectrums of the media.

The authorities are right, of course. Mass brawls, always a possibility when Meath play Dublin, have no part in modern day sport, and offer no encouragement to the hundreds of kids inside Parnell on Sunday and the thousands who have seen the pictures of the row since then.

Those guilty deserve to have the book thrown at them by the GAA, as appears to be the case, but a much bigger question mark hangs over the GAA in the light of this ugly affair, a question that has been unanswered for many years now and one that involves a cup of Mrs. Doyle’s beloved tea.

No, I am not going la-la. As Whelan made his way off the playing area at Croke Park last Sunday a so called Meath fan saw fit to throw a full cup of steaming hot tea at him. It landed close to Whelan but not on him, thankfully.

I’ve never been a fan of Whelan’s penchant for heavy handedness, as displayed at Croker two years ago and again in Parnell Park last Sunday, but he did not deserve to be attacked by a Meath supporter as he was last Sunday.

A hot cup of tea may not seem as fierce as a Ciaran Whelan, punch but it could have scalded him, maybe even scarred the Dub for life.

Is that sort of behavior acceptable in modern GAA? Does a player deserve to be attacked in such a manner by a supposed supporter for something that happened on the pitch and within sight of the referee who took action within the rules of the game?

I don’t think so. No player deserves such treatment, no fan can be allowed to behave in such a manner and in such a potentially explosive environment.

The GAA are right to hound those responsible for the melee on the pitch last Sunday, and a stern punishment will serve notice to anyone else thinking of following suit when the championships kick-off in football and hurling this summer.

They also have to chase down whoever threw that cup of tea at the Dublin player from the Meath section of the crowd last Sunday.

That action was every bit as deplorable as the punches thrown on the pitch. Anyone who thinks otherwise deserves to have their teabags served up in a cup and not in the pot.

HERO OF THE WEEK

ONE Meath man had plenty to smile about on Sunday when Kells native Damien McGrane captured his first title on the European Tour with victory in the Volvo China Open in the Olympic city of Beijing. McGrane battled through the torrential rain in the final round as if it never existed, and ended up an impressive winner with a nine shot margin. A truly nice guy, he deserves his moment in the sun but it won’t be temporary. You can bet that McGrane will win again on tour now that he’s made the breakthrough.

IDIOT OF THE WEEK

THE players involved in the mass brawl at Parnell Park last Sunday will be punished by the GAA and rightly so, but there is a real danger that the idiot who threw a cup of hot tea at Dublin’s Ciaran Whelan after his red card may escape unpunished. Claims from the Dublin camp suggest it was a Meath fan who threw the tea, just weeks after a Mayo fan hurled a wooden spoon at Kerry’s Kieran Donaghy. Such behavior is not befitting of a great organization like the GAA, and they really must chase down the moron responsible.

Sideline Views

GAA: Dublin city officials want to impose a parking restriction zone around major sports events in the capital that will effectively see ordinary fans forced to walk over a mile and a half to venues like Croke Park and Lansdowne Road. It is further proof that the buffoons running the country are also losing the run of themselves, and an insult to the ordinary fan that fills these venues. It’s also proof that the new national stadium should have been built at a Greenfield site away from the city center, but it’s too late for that now. More’s the pity.

HURLING: Remember the Cork hurlers who spent most of the winter on strike? Well, their county board are certainly looking after them now, having just sent the entire squad off to Spain for a week-long training camp in the sunshine ahead of their forthcoming Munster Championship endeavors. Newly crowned NHL champions Tipp are also sunning themselves across the border in Portugal. No need for fake tan this summer then.

SOCCER: FAI chief executive John Delaney has finally been sent to Coventry –- and it only cost a little over ?3,000 for the privilege! Don’t go celebrating just yet, however, as the Heineken Cup package which John bought at a Waterford United auction last weekend includes a return ticket. Still, I’m sure John will enjoy looking around the Ricoh Arena with his Munster scarf around his neck.

SOCCER: Southampton fans were aggrieved by their team’s loss at home to Burnley in the Championship on Saturday, but not as aggrieved as the players who discovered after the game that thieves had robbed them of a bundle of cash from the dressingroom. Guess they can say they woz robbed.