Limerick finally get a rub of the green
First, there was the Wexford goal, scored by Eric Bradley in the ninth minute of the second-half. During his fine solo-run into the Limerick red-zone Eric came up against a Limerick defender, tossed the ball over his head and gathered again at the other side — a clear foul in Gaelic football.
Not a word said on that, no replay to examine the incident.
Second, another major if shorter-lived controversy in the second-half of what was a magnificent contest between two well-matched and totally committed teams. In the 60th minute Limerick worked the ball forward to their two dangerous corner-forwards Ger Collins and Ian Ryan. Ryan and Collins played a clever one-two which ended with the former through one-one-one with Wexford keeper Anthony Masterson. Ryan’s shot blazed marginally over the crossbar but that wasn’t enough for the netminder.
Noticing that the umpire on his left, the man with the white flag, had missed what had happened (such was the power of Ian Ryan’s shot), Anthony immediately, urgently and repeatedly started to signal a wide, while shouting at the umpire — “Wide ball, wide ball, wide ball!”. The umpire duly waved it wide, but was instantly enlightened as to his error, not just by the two Limerick players but by the howls of derision from the crowd, by referee Derek Fahy and subsequently put up the flag.
Fast-forward to the fourth minute of injury-time and the controversial Limerick winning point. The man who put up the white flag was the same man who had been tricked by Anthony Masterson just over 10 minutes earlier. Do you think he was now going to be convinced by the same man that he had got it wrong again? This time he stuck to his guns, insisted that it was a point, and so, the result stands.
There are those of us who would say that having seen them suffer so often over the years because of bad officiating calls, this is no more than Limerick deserve.
WE all know of the incidents in recent years in big games in Munster against Cork and Kerry, but I can go back to a Munster minor football in Thurles in the late 90s, Limerick totally on top against Kerry, when a cracking ‘goal’ that came into play off the back-stanchion holding up the nets was missed by the umpires, play allowed to continue.
Had that goal been given Limerick would have been out of sight, but Kerry came back from the dead in the second-half, and won.
I think what nearly anyone who follows an inter-county GAA team that’s been adversely affected by a bad call would now like to see is a change, an adoption of modern technology to check on the marginal calls.
Every week now there’s a new controversy — surely it’s time to move into the 21st century? And surely also, it’s time for the GAA to move and introduce game-clocks? Expense? That’s a nonsensical excuse, the lie given to it by the fact that Ladies’ Football has had that system for years, as has every basketball team in the country.
If they can afford it, surely the GAA can too.
