TROUBLE ahead for the Bride Rovers and Glen Rovers in Cork, after the mass brawl before half-time in their tempestuous Cork SHC clash in Páirc Ui Chaoimh yesterday.

A county board probe will begin within days, according to board officials last night.

In what was already a bad-tempered encounter, Glen Rovers midfielder Donal Cronin felled Bride Rovers defender Shane Kearney with a full-blooded and dangerous charge just before half-time. In fact, the match was already into the third minute of injury-time, and given the incident occurred in front of the tunnel, close to where both sets of subs and team officials were located, the prudent thing for referee Diarmuid Kirwan to have done may have been to blow the whistle for half-time, take the offending Lynch to one side and show him the red card he subsequently received, and get everyone off the pitch, giving tempers a chance to cool.

Instead, with play set to resume after the subsequent free the incident was allowed to escalate, several players from both sides becoming entangled, then several subs, a few officials, and soon it was a full-scale riot, a lot of serious punches being thrown.

Even as Lynch was being shown the red card, however, joined on the sideline by Bride Rovers' Daniel Dooley after the corner-forward had raced a considerable distance to join in the affray - having already been yellow-carded - the brawling continued, and didn't stop even after the ball had been put back in play, the half-time whistle sounded. It continued on the sidelines and on the field, over 20 people involved, both benches having cleared. The row continued down the tunnel, and didn't let up for several minutes.

"Obviously there will be an investigation," said the official, who didn't wish to be named. "There's no place in our game for that kind of behaviour, and it will be dealt with in a timely fashion." Glen Rovers won comfortably in extra-time, but depending on the outcome of the investigation, that win could come at a heavy price.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, June 28, 2010