Brian Gavin: Football refereeing in a better place than hurling

Like I did in referees meetings in Croke Park, I give an honest opinion and I won’t be changing that for anyone

Mon, 09 Nov, 2020 - 07:00

I was taken back a bit by the reaction to last Monday’s column.

I didn’t think my assessment of the hurling referees over that weekend was overly harsh but clearly it was for some people.

All I will say is I know what it’s like to make mistakes in games but when your error count is running to six or seven in a game like they were for a few match officials last weekend the criticism is warranted. Like I did in referees meetings in Croke Park, I give an honest opinion and I won’t be changing that for anyone.

Football referees are in a better place than hurling ones right now and that was borne out by what transpired this weekend. Derek O’Mahoney didn’t have a perfect game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh but he wasn’t poor by any means.

Sure, there were some soft frees given and he could have allowed for the conditions a bit more but he got the major decisions right. The winning goal stood and correctly so. The black cards shown to Ronan Buckley and David Moran were on the money too. He might have done more to let the game flow but on his biggest day yet he could hold his head up.

The duration of Moran’s black card spilled into extra-time, which is one of the quirks about cards and extra-time. Yellow cards don’t and for the team red cards don’t either so had Moran been sent off Kerry would have had their full complement for the first six minutes of extra-time.

I’m not sure if it’s an anomaly of the black card — if you do the crime, you must do the time — but it’s bound to become more of an issue for both football and hurling with all the remaining games now having to be decided on the day.

In the other Munster semi-final in Limerick on Saturday, Limerick will feel aggrieved they were denied a penalty late on even though there was a possibility of too many steps by Hugh Bourke. Maurice Deegan let the play go on but it was a contentious one.

In Dr Hyde Park yesterday, David Gough gave another fine performance, underlining why he is the best out there at the minute. He is refereeing with serious confidence and the players know it, which keeps them in check. He gave great advantage for two Paddy Durcan points and the yellow card for Conor Cox taking an opponent out of the play was correct.

Two up-and-coming referees in Martin McNally and Paul Faloon also did well in their appointments over the weekend. McNally was correct to book James Dolan for an elbow on Con O’Callaghan and other calls such as the yellow for Ray Connellan were spot on.

Faloon made a great call in blackcarding Killian Brady for pulling down his marker off the ball.

John Keenan refereed the big hurling game of the weekend in Thurles on Saturday and he got probably 90% of the decisions right. However, the two big ones he missed were pretty obvious.

How he didn’t spot Paddy Smyth’s rugby tackle on Shane Kingston I don’t know. Again with the cynicism in hurling. Then to need Fergal Horgan to recommend Colm Spillane be booked for a dangerous foul on Donal Bourke was disappointing. Spillane can count himself lucky not to have been sent off.

Waterford man Thomas Walsh was in charge of the Clare-Laois game and it was one of his linesmen who advised him to show David McInerney a red card for an off-the-ball incident.

Thomas looked nervous to me although he did allow the game to develop and had the bit of cop on not to involve himself when he didn’t need to.

One decision he will regret was not giving Paddy Purcell the advantage when he was through on goal. He blew for a penalty but then consulted with his linesman James Owens when he had no need to. I still believe he is a referee that will be around for a long time to come.