Henry Shefflin has described Davy Fitzgerald's pitch incursion during Sunday's league semi-final defeat to Tipperary as "a silly act".

The Wexford boss is sure to find himself in hot water with GAA disciplinary chiefs after entring the field of play at Nowlan Park and tangling with Tipp's Jason Forde. Kilkenny legend Shefflin has joined the chorus of disapproval:

"For me, it crossed the line. You look at it and you go, 'maybe' but then I reflected on it and every club manager, novices, and this is an issue for the GAA as a whole, across the organisation, we hear it so much that in other sports how much respect there is for referees and how much respect there is for the players. I think it just looks bad," Shefflin is quoted in The Irish Times.

"Brian [Cody] was often animated on the line, but he never crossed that line. Maybe he encroached a little bit to get out to the referee but that was it. I think this was too far. To be honest, the players are out in a kind of combat area. They have enough to deal with without a manager encroaching on the pitch and they wondering what's going on.

"Look, I think what Davy has done, what he has achieved, I don't think any other manager could probably get that bounce so quickly. So I have no doubt that he's a great manager. For any team, whether it by my own club team or Wexford or whoever, he will get that bounce, and he's gotten that in Wexford, like 19,000 people in there.

"But I think it does set a bad example, yeah, because there's so much good he does for the promotion of hurling but I think it takes away from all the good work that he and the team, the management team, have done by doing (that). And it was a silly act, I'd imagine he will reflect on it that way."

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