Sideline Cuts has a lot of sympathy and respect for Seamus McEnaney these past few weeks. For one, the fact Matty Forde was free to play against . . . and knock out . . . his Monaghan team in this year's championship, and possibly undo so much of the good work he has done this past two years in elevating his county team to midtier status again. Two, for the way in which McEnaney never made an issue of Forde's availability ("Wexford were the better team, we didn't play to our potential") and had the grace to say that Forde himself was "the victim of a poorly-run system". Indeed many of his comments in the extensive interview he gave The Irish News last week were consistent with that of a broadminded, well-informed football man, that frankly, the GAA could do with more of patrolling and administering its games.

There was one point, though, Sideline Cuts had to take issue with Banty on and that was his discrediting of Frank Flynn, who officiated that MonaghanWexford qualifier, on the basis that the Leitrim man "hasn't even handled a senior football championship final in his own county". The reason Flynn hasn't refereed a Leitrim senior final is because the Aughawillan man is still able to play in them and/or could be playing against teams who play in them. Don't we often complain that we don't have enough 30-year old referees who are still playing or aren't long out of playing the game?

And yes, those referees might have bad games and make mistakes when they go up a level.

Sure didn't McEnaney's own brother Pat in the 1996 All Ireland?

ROOM WITH A VIEW AND IT SURE ISN'T LIMERICK

A pleasure to visit O'Connor Park in Tullamore and see the new stand there. Built at a cost of 5m, the edi"ce has a section for wheelchair viewers, a lift, a roomy press box and, above all, a good view from every point in the 7,000-seater stand . . . this because the angle of elevation is suf"ciently well raked to allow you see comfortably over the head of the person in front of you. In this respect, the Mackey Stand in Limerick it sure ain't.

No more will provincial championship matches be moved out of O'Connor Park for reasons of health and safety regulations. Good.