Attack the rules, not the referee
An avid GAA man, a Cork man living in Limerick who has obviously been looking at hurling for more years than myself, gauging his reaction to referee Shane Hourigan’s decisions provided insight into how a supporter assesses hurling officiating.
Mick, it must be said, is of the no-nonsense school of thought. A man who queried Henry Shefflin’s sending off but obviously not to the extent that he contested Pat Horgan’s red card in the Munster final, he has been frustrated with how he believes the game has become sanitised. “Frees and cards for nothing,” he bemoaned.
Thankfully, he’s not of the “let it flow” brigade. Throughout the course of Wednesday’s game, he spotted frees in real time that Hourigan, having looked at the replays, might wish he had another opportunity to call.
But Hourigan, like James McGrath, Barry Kelly, James Owens and any other inter-county referee this summer, doesn’t have the privilege of getting another look or the panoramic angles we’re privileged to as TV viewers.
We deem ourselves experts and having superior knowledge to referees not because we know the rules better — that clearly isn’t the case — but because we have the tools to dissect an incident. They have but a split-second.
Mick, for the most part, was consistent in his analysis. When Seadna Morey planted his hurley down on Niall O’Meara’s helmet as he attempted to bat away the ball, my more senior companion argued after first viewing it was purely accidental, as did I.
After the replay, he retained his position, pointing out O’Meara had interrupted the flight of the ball Morey was anticipating. He accepted why Tipp were awarded a free but questioned the yellow carding of Morey.
Me on the other hand? Having watched it a second time, I felt a caution was an appropriate call even if, like Horgan’s dismissal, there were grounds for a red card and that’s not considering Pat McEnaney’s stern directive this year on head-high tackling.
Horgan was unfortunate to see his Munster final truncated but there was enough criteria for McGrath to send him to the line.
Shefflin was also unlucky to be sent to the line for two yellow cards in Kilkenny’s All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Cork but again there was evidence to back up Kelly’s decision.
The second yellow card was a straightforward one. As for the first one, it could come under a variety of aggressive fouls such as obstructing an opponent or to use the hurley in a careless manner.
The rescinding of Shefflin’s red card marks the second time in almost three weeks the authority of a referee has been seriously questioned.
Forgetting the rights and wrongs of both cases for a moment, what message does this latest retraction send?
McEnaney says he has no truck with what happens in boardrooms: “What happens outside of the job that we do, in the committee rooms, that’s for other people to decide and we’ve no axe to grind.”
Would Hourigan, for example, have issued just a yellow card had he not seen the fate that befell McGrath in recent weeks? He did the same when a similar incident occurred in Sunday’s All-Ireland minor semi-final.
We don’t know that but the last thing we need is referees shying away from making judgements. It’s what they’re there for and Hourigan’s decision didn’t appear to be in keeping with McEnaney’s assurance that referees would continue to issue red cards for high fouls in the wake of the Horgan sending off.
The sad reality is the stock of hurling referees has probably never been lower but it’s not all of their own making. For the likes of McGrath and Kelly, they can thumb through the book safe in the knowledge that they were true to the rules that enshrine the game.
That’s in spite of the GAA contradicting them later in the disciplinary process. That’s in spite of us spectators who are equipped with technology to pore over their calls along with slow-motion to denigrate them.
All the while, the GAA and ourselves ignore the bigger picture that hurling has increasingly become a difficult game to officiate.
Some in Kilkenny hope it’s a cold day in hell before Kelly takes charge of one of their games. The same would apply to McGrath in quarters in Cork. And after Sunday, Owens’ name won’t be fondly spoken of in Dublin hurling circles even if he did appear to do Liam Rushe a favour.
It’s us that need changing. It’s the rules that need changing. Not the refs.
