Finding an equilibrium on hurling discipline

KILLINAN END

There we were ambling along through the National Hurling League without controversy or turmoil while the football competition went through its teething problems. Then suddenly the spectre of head injuries projects its shadow and we get a serious dose of ‘be careful what you wish for’ unintended consequences. At this rate every championship game will finish thirteen aside.

This would be the point where traditionally someone would mention and lament John Moloney with a fuss-free and common-sense approach. John is a further throwback in that he refereed both hurling and football at inter-county level - you would wonder if specialisation has really raised standards. Or are we simply exposing refereeing to the modern tedium of over-management and micro-analysis with no tangible improvement.

In parallel to all this we have an epidemic of ball-throwing with the slow-motion clips of Limerick's examples against Clare just the tip of a very large iceberg, yet all the refereeing intelligence in the world is unable to deal with it. Arguments against the recent motion to congress held that preventing same-hand handpasses (in practice these are throws most of the time) would lead to rucks and players unable to off-load the sliotar.

No apparent thought that players might adapt and not be so stupid as to run into contact and have to rely on an illegal handpass to bail them out. Perhaps the practical application of this change would have been a broadly transformed landscape where throwing of the ball was not dominating the way games are played? A world where possession was up for grabs regularly during a game? Referees ignore this or are instructed to ignore this and yet have decided to send players off by the new time for other offences.

Kilkenny-Tipperary in Nowlan Park fringed on the farcical in the end. The Black and Amber finished with just a dozen players which implies that they sledged all around them. It certainly didn't seem like that. Yes, Blanchfield made it easy for the referee. And Carey was silly too. But you would really wonder about Jordan Molloy's decent effort at a hook and if it even merited a second yellow card. Is there not at argument for some slack when a player is making a legitimate attempt to hook an opponent?

Likewise, the sudden obsession with head-high tackles leads referees to send off a player in Peter Duggan’s case where the arm is held out but is not weaponised. It is simply a natural reaction and if it is assumed by referees to be a threat opposing players will surely swing out on a player’s arm to benefit from this. Are we to get to the stage where players go around like hand-ball-fearing soccer players with arms held behind their backs?

The hit of the weekend title surely goes to Conor Cooney’s tackle on Mike Casey which was about as clear a piece of red-card level foul play as you would see. Hard to imagine that the failure to deal with that did not foreshadow early Sunday morning text messages creating emboldened referees in the afternoon. It is difficult to imagine any other sport where a game as tame as Kilkenny-Tipperary was would finish with four players red carded. Nobody wishes to see players being concussed or head high tackles but rugby would seem to be one of the benchmarks for potentially dangerous play and yet it is rare for several players to get the line. If this standard continues in hurling it may be necessary to look at a sin-bin or some kind of alternative to teams being down several players.

That brings us to Alan Tynan and a decision which the player greeted with a smile though he’d have been forgiven a good belly laugh. How the referee must have cringed watching that one later that night when he realised no actual contact had been made. Kudos to the Kilkenny player’s Oscar-standard performance as he crashed to the ground like a man that had been shot. Lord knows how he’d have been had he actually been hit full-on.

It was mentioned in the aftermath that Alan Tynan went in with “intent” which hopefully was the case as we’d hardly wish to see too many in Blue and Gold going into anything without intent. The question is what the intent was. To these eyes it was an intent to execute a legitimate ‘side to side charge’ – a ’shoulder’ in old money - as per the rules. The opposing player dodged it and then you’d expect that we’d all get on with the game. You could hardly make up the rest. At least it puts to bed once and for all the self-styled alpha male thing from Kilkenny where they claim to never exaggerate an injury. Hopefully the refereeing approach will find some kind of sensible equilibrium between protecting players and not banishing several players in every game to the detriment of the spectacle.