‘Sportsmanship is dead' – St Patrick's Athletic boss Stephen Kenny fumes as injured Forrester ignored before Shels goal

The Irish Sun

13-05-2025

STEPHEN KENNY reckons sportsmanship is dead and gone in the League of Ireland.
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St Patrick's Athletic manager Stephen Kenny was left fuming after the injury as he slammed a lack of sportsmanship
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Pat's Chris Forrester fell to the ground after a hamstring injury during the clash
But he paraphrased a poem everyone who studied Leaving Cert English remembers - WB Yeates' September 1913 - when pointing out Shels equaliser came while he was injured.
Forrester went out as he stretched to intercept a pass intended for Kameron Ledwidge, and Harry Wood put the ball in the back of the net 28 seconds later.
As it was not a head injury, the referee could not stop the game. And
But he admitted it was a tough one as he knew Forrester was clearly injured in the instant.
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He said: 'Chris, he just overstretched, he was actually going on goal, he intercepted a pass, he was right in on goal, and Aidan Keena was there too.
'His groin, he just…collapsed. The game was played on, Shelbourne played on, and the rest is history.
'There's no rules anymore, there's no, there's no sportsmanship at all, it doesn't exist now. It's a big change for me coming in, sportsmanship is a thing of the past.
'The previous game, Bohemians didn't give the ball back over something. This one, you know, they play on, the referee doesn't stop it because it's not a head injury.
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'But he's obviously in pain, he's in agony on the ground, so it could have went on for 10 minutes. What do you do?
'He's in agony on the ground, so, but that's the way it is, and the rules are the rules.
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'So that's the way it is now, it seems to be blanket, there are changes, fundamental changes.
'That's one of the things I noticed (since returning to the league), that sportsmanship is dead and gone, it's with O'Leary in the grave.'
Kenny said he has not spoken to his players on whether they should or should not put the ball out for injured opponents as he acknowledged there are occasions he is frustrated by acting.
He said: 'I suppose some people exploiting the situations has led it to become like that.
'People, gamesmanship, fellas lying down, trying to get games stopped, things like that, that has led to it.
'But obviously he was in distress, Chris Forrester, he was in real distress when he went down, do you know what I mean? So, that was it.
'The referee should probably stop it if someone's in distress, do you know what I mean? But how do you measure that? It's not easy to measure, I suppose.
'It is what it is, I didn't come in (to speak to media) to harp on about that. But sportsmanship seems to be less and less.'
The loss of Forrester for the next four games before the summer break is a blow for the Saints as they look to recover from back to back losses to Derry City and Shelbourne.
But Kenny insisted his squad are in a good place.
He said: 'We've dropped four points, conceded two injury-time goals in the two Dublin derbies (against Bohemians and Shelbourne).
'That's where we're four points behind the two top teams now, we conceded four points, 1-0 up against Bohemians in the 90th minute….
'So that's been the difference. So we've only ourselves to blame for that. We can't blame anyone.
'That's the reality. So we must dust ourselves down, a lot went right. We learned from that.'