Stiffer tests ahead for black card
“I think there’s a little bit of a fear on behalf of Croke Park and the referees that there would have been a deluge of black cards and receive a whole heap of negative response,” Tommy Carr told RTÉ Six One News.
The former Dublin and Cavan manager had watched a game where there were no clear-cut black card offences. The closest came when Dublin’s Darragh Nelson high-tackled Paul Sharry and went to ground. But as the Westmeath player was not pulled to the ground, referee David Coldrick was correct to issue a yellow card. Carr deemed there was something amiss on Coldrick’s part, but ex-Meath footballer Bernard Flynn, also in Mullingar, felt the reluctance was coming from the players.
“Dublin have a B team and Westmeath are trying out nine or 10 young players,” he stated on RTÉ Radio One after a tepid first half. “I don’t think a lot of them are doing themselves justice because they’re not getting stuck in. They’re not going 100% for the ball as they normally would. They’re minding themselves because it’s obvious they do not want to get a black card.”
Where there was no story, Carr and Flynn felt they needed to provide one to explain why there was none.
Football Review Committee chairman Eugene McGee, also in attendance at Cusack Park, reasoned it won’t be until the League that the black card can be judged properly.
Carr’s suggestion bordered on a conspiracy but Flynn and McGee’s opinions were closer to the mark.
The truth is it was a phoney start for the black card, not necessarily because of the lower level of competition but because of who wasn’t playing in them.
Of the seven 2013 All-Ireland quarter-finalists in action this past weekend (Mayo are on a team holiday in Dubai), just 32 players of those who started began last August’s games. That’s less than 31% of the 105 total.
With so much of the best talent not participating, we weren’t close to the start of the picture the black card will paint on the inter-county canvass.
The total of 18 black cards across the 20 provincial pre-season games was low but hardly significant considering its playing population is barely representative.
Bigger tests will come but the GAA will be reasonably happy with the soft launch of the new rules. Carr might see it differently but the appointment of Championship referees to games helped in coaxing in the new rules. Coldrick’s application of them, for one, was reasonable and the advantage rule could contribute to more exciting football this season.
On top of Carr’s statement, there was some other loose commentary. McGee spoke on Sunday about the embarrassment of picking up a black card. If being automatically substituted is the punishment for stopping a certain goal and winning a game then the player will be anything but sheepish (by the by, Limerick IT’s Conn Prendeville looked anything but humiliated after being brandished with one in Sunday’s defeat to Cork).
The black card is a deterrent but not as strong as the FRC or referees think. Rather, it is a new punishment for a newly recognised group of fouls.
It is by no means a perfect measure, it will need distilling, yet some would have you believe the media have been cheerleaders of it. Last week, not one but two respected columnists — one of them a manager, the other involved with an inter-county football team — used the term “group think” in relation to the GAA press and the black card. They seem to overlook they too have prominent roles in the sector they sought to criticise.
The black card will generate debate long into 2014 and likely beyond but most of it will be just that, mere talk. The jury is out on the black card but that’s most likely where it will remain.
* Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
With every Cork footballer who retired or, in Ciarán Sheehan’s case, became unavailable at the tail end of last year, so too receded most supporters’ hopes of Brian Cuthbert’s debut season being a promising one.
There could be an issue in finding someone to partner Aidan Walsh in midfield, but the host of talent at his disposal suggests all is anything but lost for 2014.
In fact, going by Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s comments on Radio Kerry on Saturday it may be that their neighbours are the ones who are facing a second successive spring struggle.
Aside from recently-retired pair Tomás Ó Sé and Eoin Brosnan, Colm Cooper, Johnny Buckley and Fionn Fitzgerald will be tied up with Dr Crokes until the start of March at the earliest.
Marc Ó Sé won’t be back until then either and Declan O’Sullivan’s return isn’t anticipated until a later date. Killian Young and Darran O’Sullivan are currently rehabbing from operations.
Paul Galvin resumes training shortly while Kieran Donaghy is unlikely to be fit for the start of the League.
All in all, Kerry may only have nine of the team that lost last year’s All-Ireland semi-final to Dublin available for their return to Croke Park on February 1.
A repeat of their dismal first half to the 2013 campaign is unlikely to be on the cards but their league aspirations should be tempered as much as Cork’s if not more.
Is there anything that escapes Jim Gavin’s notice? Last week, we returned to his remarkable comments after last September’s All-Ireland final about teams already being ahead of Dublin in their 2013 preparations.
On Sunday, he elaborated on his remarks when asked about the challenge presented by Louth in tomorrow’s O’Byrne Cup game.
“I think the week after the All-Ireland Meath might have drawn up their training panel so Kildare, Louth... there’s a host of Leinster teams that have been back many, many months.”
It became a tradition at Dublin press conferences last season for Gavin to reel off the names of players from the opposing team.
For those not accustomed to it, his words may have sounded like lip service but when everyone’s eyes are trained on his team it’s incumbent that he has his pair focused back on them.
