Brian Gavin: Championship could be lost to farcical sin-bin calls

I would make a calculated guess and suggest James Owens was only following the penalty/sin bin interpretation he was given in the referees’ group

Referee Fergal Horgan shows a yellow card to Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy during their Leinster SHC semi-final against Wexford at Croke Park. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Up to yesterday afternoon, this column was going to be all about Fergal Horgan and the pivotal role he played in making the Kilkenny-Wexford Leinster semi-final a classic game of hurling.

In those 100 minutes or so, Fergal showed an understanding of the game that made it an epic. With the crowds returning to matches in decent numbers, he gave them what they wanted, which was a full-blown derby.

Instead, what happened in Limerick forms the thrust of this piece. As I was putting my thoughts together, I see James Owens’ name being dragged through the muck on social media and it is wrong.

I would make a calculated guess and suggest James was only following the penalty/sin bin interpretation he was given in the referees’ group. But make no mistake, his decision to send Aidan McCarthy to the sideline for 10 minutes and award Tipperary penalty was a ridiculous and farcical decision.

Moments like this pose a real threat to the summer’s hurling. I am not scaremongering when I say the Championship could be lost to these controversies unless the referees are convened and told something different to what they have been told. Because, with the exception of Eoin Murphy’s call, this was the third wrong decision in the space of a week after Shane Fives and Peter Casey’s sin bins.

Listening to Fergal on the Irish Examiner GAA podcast a couple of months ago, I raised an eyebrow when he spoke about sin bins and penalties being given even if the offended player was close to the sideline inside the 20m line. To my mind, that said there was a collective decision that there was almost going to be a zero-tolerance approach taken to such fouls past that line or inside the semi-circle.

Whoever signed off on it is just as responsible as James for what happened in Limerick. Forget about it not being a goalscoring opportunity, what McCarthy did to Jake Morris was late and it merited a yellow card, but cynical? I make no apologies for wanting the sin bin introduced, but it wasn’t with this in mind that I supported it. Rugby tackles, bringing down a man as he is honing in on goal, that’s what I wanted weeded out of the game.

In the past, there have been rule changes made during the league when new rules have turned out to be bad moves. I don’t expect this one to be altered just two weeks into the championship, but guidance can be given — advice that fouls like Murphy’s on Conall Flood are exactly why the sin bin has come into hurling. Not what happened in the other three instances.

Fergal had no choice but to send the Kilkenny goalkeeper to the line in what was an exemplary piece of refereeing. The yellow cards he handed out to Paddy Deegan and Liam Ryan were on the money, and he showed David Dunne great advantage. The only decision I would question was how hard he was on Jack O’Connor when the game was in the melting pot, but he could hardly have done better.

Before him, Johnny Murphy showed a less fussy side to his officiating when Dublin beat Galway. He was more relaxed, and while the game was a relatively easy one to manage, he looked composed and used his authority without being noticed too much.

Paud O’Dwyer will take positives from his game in Thurles on Saturday evening too, although Casey going in over the top with his hurley didn’t appear cynical, and his entanglement with Conor Cahalane appeared accidental more than anything else.

Conor Boylan seemed to be hard done by when he was blown for holding an opponent’s hurley when he could have been awarded a penalty. I can understand why Paud gave Cork the free, but looking at the replay, the Limerick substitute was unfortunate.