Brian Gavin: In the calls that mattered, Liam Gordon was correct

REFFING IT RIGHT: Liam Gordon shows the red card to Eoin Downey of Cork, 3, during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Cork and Tipperary at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

It’s always the way in major games that the referee is judged by the key moments rather than a general “was it a free, was it not a free” discussion.

In his first All-Ireland senior hurling final, in the calls that mattered Liam Gordon was correct. Sure, there were a few decisions he didn’t nail but list the main moments and he was right on nearly all that count.

Both penalties were penalties although there were claims that John McGrath had nudged Eoin Downey just before the Cork full-back fouled him. Sitting where I was on the 20m line on the Hill side of the Hogan Stand, I didn’t see it at the time but McGrath was definitely fouled afterwards.

Later on and with Tipperary on their way to the All-Ireland, Ronan Maher upended Brian Hayes and Liam had only one choice but to award Cork a shot at Rhys Shelly’s goal.

I had a great view of the square ball goal that Liam disallowed in the first half. Jason Forde was definitely in the area before the ball came in and it was correctly ruled out for the infringement despite Tipperary’s protestations that it should have stood.

At the end of the first half, Cork supporters were rightly furious when Alan Connolly was shouldered in the back by Bryan O’Mara and then whistled for throwing the ball.

At half-time, linesman Thomas Walsh attempted to control the players from entering the Hogan Stand tunnel at the same tunnel but Declan Dalton pushed his way past him. It wasn’t a great look especially in the most important hurling game of the year.

It was a moment that could have escalated into something a lot more serious as Tipperary players were already going into their dressing room. Dalton was yellow carded by Gordon once he returned to the field for the start of the second half and Walsh also gave him a stern talking-to.

Both Connolly and Robert Doyle were booked for off-the-ball silliness in the second half and Liam continued to allow good advantage to the likes of Jason Forde and Andrew Ormond.

HawkEye was busy and most of the referrals were justified although the technology had to step in to overrule an umpire who waved a Darragh McCarthy shot wide. The Tipperary supporters in the Hogan Stand would have informed him of the error in his ways well before HawkEye did.

For John McGrath’s first goal, it’s worth mentioning that HawkEye had a part to play in that too. It clearly adjudged that Jake Morris’s shot that Patrick Collins brought down hadn’t gone over the crossbar. Had it detected the sliotar going over, it would have notified the referee and Tipperary would have been awarded a point rather than a goal.

Gordon’s assessment that Damien Cahalane had charged into McCarthy when he came out with the ball was also on the money and it was the type of thing that summed up Cork’s day.

Overall, Liam’s display was an accomplished one and on the basis of this shouldn’t be his last. I wrote about his need to get the balance of the game right and by and large he did.

How can we judge the state of hurling officiating after this inter-county season? The Football Review Committee have given us plenty of food for thought and hurling shouldn’t think there are some rule changes that are not translatable to the smaller ball code.

Match officials deserve a lot more respect from players and managers and it is already evident at both county and club level in football that the stiffer punishments are acting as a deterrent for bad behaviour.

Perhaps hurling officials might also consider banning passes back to the goalkeeper, which we saw a lot of in this All-Ireland final. Shelly scored a great long-distance point for me but it actually might encourage defenders to play more forward than lateral ball.

I know I sound like a broken record calling for referees to provided with greater supports and there have been movements in the GAA in that regard such as RefWell which was launched earlier this week. The man in the middle must never feel isolated especially when referees are in such short supply.