Refs fret over rules rumpus

HURLING referees are especially unhappy about what is perceived as the severity of the penalty of dismissing a player after just one yellow card in the new experimental rules.

Nevertheless, in spite of all the misgivings, there is a ready acceptance on the part of the referees that they have no choice but to implement the new rules.

A canvass of six referees - former and current - reveals a divergence of views on the principal experiments, namely the yellow card stricture and allowing the clean pick-up in football. Interestingly, only one of three football referees I spoke with raised the issue of the hand-pass, the over-use of which is an obvious concern to genuine followers of the game.