Kieran Shannon: We must all do better when it comes to referees
'An incident like what happened in Roscommon could have happened in any county. It could happen in any county.' Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Some habits and traditions die hard.
For so long we’d have all spent the first Sunday of September either in or looking in on events from Croke Park. A football semi-final or that most glorious of Irish institutions and occasions: the All Ireland hurling final.
Over the weekend we were reminded that it was exactly five years ago that David Burke lifted the Liam McCarthy Cup to signal the end of a Galway famine; 10 years since David Clarke made that save from Bernard Brogan in front of the Hill; precisely 20 years since that Ray Cosgrove free came back off that Armagh upright, and 26 years ago that Martin Storey could declare that Wexford were no longer the bridesmaids of hurling.
Virtually every other hurling final was played that same weekend, so much so that we could set our clocks to it or in the case of Tadhg Coakley name a book honouring the hold it could still have on us into the winter of our lives: The First Sunday in September.
Of course all that has since changed.
The last time a man kicked or pucked a ball in Croke Park on the first Sunday of September was Dean Rock with a free that dropped short against Kerry three years ago, meaning the five-in-a-row would have to wait for another couple of weeks. Precisely 365 days ago Emma Duggan ingeniously lobbed Ciara Trant in much the same way Rock’s dad Barney foiled Padraig Coyne many moons ago but this year Duggan and her Meath teammates squeezed their All Ireland dream-making into July.
A few years from now the inter-county season may be given a bit more time to breathe and we could see an All Ireland final on the first Sunday of August. But the days of them being in September are gone. The first Sunday and every other Sunday in September is now solely reserved for the club, much like most weekends in August are as well.
And you know what, it hasn’t been the end of the world. It hasn’t been all bad. In fact so much of it is so good.
We still have the games. We still have games to go to. And players have more meaningful games than they’ve ever had, in better weather and conditions than they’ve ever known.
In my case I spent some of this year’s first Sunday in September taking in from the terraces the local team in the local senior county club football championship with my 10-year-old son, meaning I was somewhere other than Roscommon. There, as you’ll know, the local referees abstained from officiating for the weekend in an act of solidarity with Kevin Naughton, the referee who was disgracefully laid out and hospitalised following a now infamous incident in an U17 game.
It was a gesture that was met with universal approval within and outside the county; there wasn’t a player or administrator in Roscommon that complained about how tighter it would be now to run off the local championships having lost such a prime date.
There have even been a couple of prominent commentators that have proposed that the referees in Roscommon should go much further and refuse to officiate again this year, just to underline how vital they are and how abhorrently they are treated.
But as well-meaning as such a sentiment and suggestion is, that would be leaving the rest of us off too lightly and treating the players of Roscommon too harshly.
An incident like that could have happened in any county. It could happen in any county.
What would be a far more reasonable and powerful gesture would be if for one weekend there was a national freeze on games for us to realise and appreciate the humanity and value of our referees.
Last weekend was not that weekend. Instead everywhere outside Roscommon the players continued to play and the rest of us were free to go.
So, after hearing and reading all about the Ballyforan incident and no doubt being suitably appalled, how did we carry on? Did you still give out about the referee at the game you took in, within earshot of others and even the ref himself?
Me too.
I can’t say I was abusive. The couple of occasions I found myself highlighting or bemoaning a wrong decision he had made – for they were the wrong decision, my vantage point being better and unhindered compared to his – it was the call, not the man, I was criticising.
It should also be pointed out that both sets of players and management teams were generally very respectful towards the ref and his fellow officials throughout the game, for all the times their respective supporters would have occasionally questioned or berated a call.
But still I should have been better. I should have known better.
After our side had lost by a couple of points – but still remained in the championship, in keeping with that uplifting national trend where everyone is ensured at least three group games and there’s all kinds of last-round permutations and calculations – my despondent young fella remarked, “We’d have won only for the ref.” And so I had to correct him, even though I was the same and only source where he could have come up with such a theory.
No, buddy, the ref didn’t lose or cost us the game. He made a couple of wrong calls but everyone out there made at least a few mistakes. There was at least one call where he ruled in our favour when it should have gone the other way, though you wouldn’t have heard me shout about that one. He had a better game than a lot of our lads. That defeat is on our lads, no one else. They’ll just have to be better the next day.
So must we all.
The GAA could be doing so much more to help refs. What had particularly irked me was when our star player, who once used to be the star player of the county, was repeatedly fisted in the rib cage by an opponent while receiving one particular ball. Not only did he not receive a free in but a free was blown the other way when he was deemed to have fallen on and fouled the ball.
Tackling on the ball remains highly ambiguous within the sport, with a high tolerance for cheap hits on the man in possession, so there was a certain logic to my cries of “You can only fist the ball, not the man, ref!” On top of that, the linesman had a much better vantage point of that incident than the referee did, but he didn’t intervene. Linesmen need to be more proactive, and at inter-county level there should be at least a second referee, as there is in other sports played in much smaller playing areas.
At times too some refs could do more to help themselves and by extension their colleagues. Talk to the players, form a dialogue and connection with them as fellow partners in the dance, rather than haughtily dismissing genuine queries.
But above all, the rest of us can do better, including yours truly.
In a fine piece on the matter last Sunday, Shane McGrath of the Mail noted, “The right to criticise (referees) is not at issue here and the right to grumble about the ref killing their team is one for which even the most reasonable of supporters must sometimes reach.”
But when we do grumble we’ve to ensure it’s not loud or vehement enough for my son’s generation to be another that is reared on thinking the refs are there to be blamed rather than thanked.
Without them, as they’re starting to learn in Roscommon, we’ll have no games the first Sunday in September or any other day.
