FOGARTY FORUM: Let’s get real on simulation
Look it up — rule 5.30 in the playing rules: if a player has made an attempt to achieve advantage by doing either or both, he is to be cautioned.
When have you ever seen a referee do just that? Count that against the number of times you’ve witnessed a player embellish a tackle for illegitimate gain, and there lies the rub.
Match officials, almost to a man, adopt an ‘if in doubt, leave it out’ approach. Others, when a dive or an exaggerated foul is identified, tend not to punish the perpetrator but instead allow play to carry on.
Distinguishing the deliberateness of an attempt to hoodwink a referee is not easy.
A strong vein of realism runs through GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s report and he is particularly pragmatic about the difficulty facing a referee in such a situation.
He wrote: “It is unlikely that ‘conning’ the referee can be addressed simply by passing additional laws. It is never easy to know when a player is genuinely injured or not, if he is time-wasting, or is trying to have an opponent booked.”
Duffy expands his point by stressing the responsibility of ridding the game of unsportsmanlike behaviour doesn’t just rest with referees and officials but team managers and players too.
But are managers to be trusted when their interests are so vested?
Wasn’t it GAA president Liam O’Neill who, less than two weeks ago, spoke of managers being so “divorced from the county and from the organisation” that they’re an entity in themselves”?
So cringeworthy was it, we might have thought Aidan O’Mahony’s dive following an altercation with Donncha O’Connor in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final against Cork would have marked a watershed moment. It didn’t.
Three years later, at the same Championship stage and in almost an identical area of the pitch, Donegal’s Marty Boyle made a five-course meal of a Diarmuid Connolly shove to his face.
O’Connor and Connolly both saw the line and as much as both were later exonerated, it did nothing to repair the damage done to the game by their opponents’ simulations.
Cynicism is the singular, most concerning bugbear in Gaelic football but the creeping level of cheating isn’t too far behind.
Managers aren’t the best placed to lead the march in stamping it out when they don’t exactly condemn the practice.
Sources like the This Is Our Year book have highlighted the lengths both managers and players are prepared to go to win.
This past month, referees have reacquainted themselves with rules such as only stopping the game for serious injuries and in hurling the liberal use of the hurley around the head.
It’s about time they familiarised themselves with a rule they haven’t been enforcing.
Curbing the con artists is up to them. It will be several years before the fruits of the GAA’s Give Respect, Get Respect initiative are realised, if there are any realised at all.
When that was put to Duffy yesterday, he rightly highlighted discipline in Gaelic games is much better than it was in previous generations.
“Just by the nature of people, Irish people, who we are and how we play our games, there will always be problems and you’ll never be satisfied but it’s something we have to be conscious of,” he said. “While you would draw attention to it and it would concern you, I think our games are more disciplined than 10 or 20 years ago.”
But did players attempt to dupe referees in the past as much as they do now? Was it seen as much of a worthwhile exercise as it is currently?
Whether it’s a forward in football dragging down a defender to imitate a foul or a hurler holding an opponent’s stick under their arm and falling tothe ground, players will continue to cheat.
They will do so safe in the knowledge that referees will either allow play to carry on or they won’t apply the rule for fear it may be deemed too harsh.
Differentiating between what’s deliberate and what’s not is the exact judgement call the Football Review Committee are asking referees to make with the black card.
If they don’t have the conviction to determine the authenticity of a fouled or injured player, then what hope do they have of recognising the legitimacy of a foul?
Better that referees get it wrong than to do nothing at all. Better that it act as a deterrent than a culture of deception go unchecked.
The absence of the cuckoo and the presence of breaths in a chilly Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday night were used as reasons to cool stout views of Tipperary’s tepid performance.
Eamon O’Shea doesn’t come across as a man who mines for positives but it may come as some relief to him that the alarm bells are ringing loud and clear now rather than later in the season.
And yet a 12-point defeat in the county’s first competitive game since their 18-point crucifixion at the hands of Kilkenny will do nothing but deepen the disconnect between the team and its supporters.
As indicated by their healthy take-up in season tickets for this year, Tipperary’s support base remains strong although O’Shea’s appointment undoubtedly went a long way to healing the wounds following last August.
But what some may consider a magic wand in his hand may have to be a scalpel.
How many counties other than Dublin could afford to lose a player with the versatility of Barry Cahill?
After 11 years of inter-county football, the 31-year-old retired yesterday but with something still to give.
Alan Brogan and Stephen Cluxton are the two survivors from 2002, when Cahill made his debut, with Paul Casey having retired last month. Since December, others who started their careers later such as Tomás Quinn, Ross McConnell, Eamon Fennell and Paul Brogan have either quit or been told they’re surplus to requirements.
It’s not being played out as anything like a purge. In that alone, Jim Gavin has to be admired but then, with so much young talent at his disposal, where else could he afford to be so ruthless?
