Damned if you doDamned if you don’t

IN ALL FAIRNESS

The is a contradiction many hurling followers can be accused of when they want a referee to apply the rules, but also allow the match to flow.

If a referee applied every rule in hurling to the letter of the law, matches would be reduced to a free-taking contest, while if they allow the game to flow, it means leaving disregarding the rulebook.

There comes a time in every National League campaign, be it in hurling or football, where a clampdown comes in a certain aspect and last weekend it was head high challenges.

Players and management cannot say they weren’t warned as late last week a story broken by John Fogarty in the Irish Examiner said off the back of a number of incidents the previous week, the referees committee said there would be an increased focus on such challenges going forward.

Clare manager Brian Lohan was critical of the fact that it would appear that the teams were not officially informed of the change, rather than reading about it in a national newspaper.

He has a point that a lot of committees in the GAA, including the FRC, make changes to rules, but the don’t officially inform key people involved, the players and coaches.

Still, even without notification that existing rules would be applied stringently last weekend, players should know what is and isn’t permissible, and they more than anyone else understand that they have the ultimate duty of care to their opponent. Do as to others as others would do to you!

Head high challenges have become a growing issue in recent years, particularly with players bigger and stronger than ever before, particularly ones where a player is crouching down over the ball and are completely unprotected from a player that comes into knock them off the ball.

Increasingly, players are coming in around the neck area, such as Alan Connolly on Silvermines and Tipperary hurler Michael Corcoran in the Fitzgibbon Cup semi-final last month. That challenge saw a red card issued but a similar one by Galway’s Conor Cooney on Limerick’s Mike Casey last Saturday night was not.

This is what frustrates those who point to inconsistency in that when it is the more obvious red card in the game, and it still isn’t given, what can you do.

That this incident was highlighted so much on social media in the hours after the game, the referees in charge of Sunday’s games would be under even greater pressure to apply the rules which ultimately led to seven red cards between the Kilkenny v Tipperary and Clare v Cork games.

Of the seven red cards, five of them appear fully justifiable. Cork’s Cormac O’Brien appeared more sinned against than sinner in the incident that saw Clare’s David Fitzgerald also red carded. Indeed, if you were going to issue a red card to a Cork player in that incident, it would have been to Tim O’Mahony for being third man in and contributing to a melee.

Peter Duggan’s red card for the high tackle on Cork goalkeeper Briain Saunderson appears hard but to the letter of the law, he connected with the head, something the referees to were warned to clamp down on. There was no intent on the part of Peter Duggan, and similarly Kilkenny’s Jordan Molloy when he made contact with the head of Eoghan Connolly with an attempted hook, however, “intent” is not a consideration when it comes to the rule book. I have always felt it should as there is a difference between attempting to make a play and dirty play.

David Blanchfield’s lash out at Andrew Ormond would be classed as the latter and was rightly red carded. Mikey Carey’s lash out at Darragh McCarthy was probably too harsh to be a straight red card but he was going to be sent off any way as he was already on a yellow card.

Alan Tynan’s red card for the challenge on Cian Kenny has subsequently been shown to have made no contact but from the perspective of the referee and line-umpire at the time, without video replay, it sure looked like there was contact to the head and a red card was the sanction.

It’s probably an inevitability that video replay will come into inter-county GAA to help ensure there are more right decisions made. However, we have seen in soccer and rugby, sometimes it creates even more confusion.