Brian Gavin: No controversy on Johnny Murphy's return to Walsh Park

Referee Johnny Murphy ducks out of the way of hand pass by Darragh Lyons of Waterford during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 1 match between Waterford and Tipperary at Walsh Park 

You know the crowds are back in the championship when referees are being put under pressure by the home support.

That’s the beauty of the round-robin provincial hurling championships but there are a couple of side effects such as the onus the supporters put on match officials to make calls in favour of their team.

A perfect example of that came in Wexford on Saturday night when Thomas Walsh, in possibly his biggest appointment yet, overturned Conor Cooney’s late free and gave a throw-in. Wexford scored indirectly from that reversal to make it a one-point game and later forced the draw.

Generally, referees have been giving 18 to 20 seconds to freetakers. Conor Cooney can feel a little aggrieved he was blown for overdoing it, although he did touch the ground a few times, which may have given the perception he was taking his time over the ball.

As Walsh played at least five minutes of additional time, Chin sent over the equaliser with the clock showing 76 minutes and 40 seconds. Maybe he felt there were stoppages in injury-time and it is at his discretion to play as much time as he sees fit but on top of the Cooney decision it would have aggrieved Galway.

For Brian Concannon’s goal, there was a question of the amount of steps taken by the Galway forward as there was regarding the carelessness from Mark Fanning coming out with his two feet to stop him. It was a big fixture for Thomas and he will take a lot from it.

Johnny Murphy wasn’t as much in the spotlight in Walsh Park yesterday as he had been for the Ballygunner-Loughmore-Castleiney Munster club game at the end of last year. In the past few seasons, he’s picked up a reputation for being fussy but I noticed a welcome change in his approach in the Waterford-Tipperary clash.

In the opening minutes, he let more go than he would have in the past. Two players were wrestling off the ball but instead of giving the usual couple of yellow cards he had a quiet word with them and moved on.

The Mikey Kiely swing that left Seamus Kennedy with a nasty head injury was a talking point but in fairness to the Waterford man he made contact with the ball and it went wide. Tipperary followers might have felt he was being hard on them again after the sendings-off of John and Noel McGrath in 2021 and selector Tommy Dunne was also sent off but he was spot on.

Johnny was also right when he yellow carded Dillon Quirke and Conor Gleeson. He has a presence, he’s fit and if he keeps reffing with more of that common sense approach he’ll be getting bigger games.

The Cork-Limerick game was an easy one for John Keenan. The early high foul by Aaron Gillane merited a yellow card and he was correct to punish Aaron Connolly and Mike Casey for an off-the-ball spat. Both John and Johnny clamped down on the hand-pass, John being in the right place to punish a throw by Cian Lynch.

In Enniskillen on Saturday, there was an ugly incident towards the end of the Ulster SFC preliminary round game when Tyrone’s Conn Kilpatrick thought he had caught a mark only for referee Joe McQuillan to think otherwise. In the aftermath of that, a Fermanagh player seemed to make contact with Kilpatrick’s eye area and you could see the massive reaction to it by Kilpatrick’s team-mate Conor McKenna, who was sent off as a result. I couldn’t blame McKenna for doing what he did but whether he avoid suspension is another matter.