Making the new advantage rule count
Maybe it’s the goalkeeper still in him, his understanding that the slap on the back is actually less than six inches from a kick in the backside, but he has long adopted a measured approach.
If something has to be said it will be done with subtlety. On Sunday, he chose not to give an interview to RTÉ after Dublin’s defeat to Cork. Without making a scene, he explained as much to them afterwards having turned down two requests (might it have had anything to do with RTÉ’s view of the Conal Keaney-Cian Lynch incident in the quarter-final?).
Speaking to the print and radio media, he admitted he couldn’t give a full, honest opinion of James Owens’ decision not to award Mark Schutte a free in injury-time. Were he to do so, he acknowledged he might be reprimanded in the shape of a one-match sideline ban. Missing the Leinster quarter-final against Galway game next month wasn’t worth the bother.
However, he was more open on how he felt the advantage rule was operated by Owens. “This advantage rule, obviously it was the first time we had a chance to look at it today.
A player doesn’t know that he has advantage if the referee is behind him with his hand up, and that kind of stuff. So again, there were a couple of opportunities certainly… unless you stop now or just drop the ball down and get the advantage, but you don’t know that you have the free.”
Sunday was day one for the advantage rule and some slack has to be afforded but when someone as mild-mannered yet as calculating as Cunningham is already querying its implementation it has to be considered carefully.
There were two instances in the last 15 minutes where Owens, as he was entitled per the new rule, allowed advantage to two Dublin players who were fouled in the process. However, neither attack developed into a score. David O’Callaghan, after Liam Rushe was fouled, was wide with an effort as was Mark Schutte after an infringement on Niall McMorrow.
In both situations, the five-second window had elapsed and Owens was correct not to call back the play for a free. The same happened to Cork in the eighth minute when Seamus Harnedy may have benefited more from a free.
Cunningham’s gripes are genuine. It’s all well and good if supporters know a referee is playing advantage but what about the player himself? Shouldn’t he above anyone else understand when he is afforded a window to make something of being fouled?
That isn’t the referee’s fault, per se. According to the rule, he is required only to raise his arm to signal advantage is being played. It might be an idea for him to vocalise it too but is there any guarantee the player will hear him?
The referee is not a prophet either. When Harnedy, Rushe and McMorrow were fouled Owens offered advantage in good faith. He didn’t know what was to follow but the advantage rule asks match officials to guess what come of the attack. They’ve enough to be worrying with a leather ball than the crystal kind too.
In hurling especially when they can be scored from anywhere out to 70-plus metres, frees are more reliable forms of advantage. On Sunday, Paul Ryan would have gladly taken a couple of frees in those last 20 minutes. Likewise, Pa Horgan needed no invitation in the first half. In Cork’s two games against Dublin this year, he has scored an incredible 21 points from frees.
In last Tuesday’s Irish Examiner, referees appointment chairman Willie Barrett insisted the advantage “has to be used well”.
It might anger hurling’s “let it flow” brigade but if what Barrett says is to be followed then frees must be the default setting when referees are considering advantage.
If managers have any sense they would seek to speak to referees before games and insist they be awarded frees in advantage rule situations unless they are within 20m or 30m of the goal. Otherwise, they should instruct their captain to articulate that view at the coin toss.
Rarely does advantage transpire into anything more than a point. Cyril Donnellan’s disallowed goal in the 2012 All-Ireland final replay is often cited but there are many more examples when a free would have done just fine.
In the drawn Clare-Cork decider a year later, Darach Honan was tripped and advantage was signalled only for Clare’s attack to come to nothing. A point would have made all the difference that day.
The new advantage rule is most certainly a better version than what was there before but it may soon ask us a fundamental question: do we want a more free-flowing game or one where foul play is suitably punished? Hurling would be served better by the latter.
