Time hurling went hi-tech, says ref’s chief

THE GAA should utilise modern technology to develop a sliothar fitted with a microchip to monitor its flight, a national refereeing spokesman declared.

While stressing that controversial umpiring decisions were minimal at inter-county level, national refereeing spokesman Fr Seamus Gardiner believes that the GAA should be looking at the new technology and asking: "Could it be done?"

"Now that they are experimenting with technology in soccer, we should be looking at developing something, particularly in relation to points in hurling," he said yesterday. "It's only very seldom you have problems in football, but certainly in hurling, with a high ball on a sunny day it can be a difficult call."

Fr Gardiner feels strongly about the administration of refereeing at national level, saying: "We should have a 'referees section' in Croke Park with a referee director or inspector. I think it's such a huge area now, that it's crazy that we don't have one.

"Think of the number of matches that can be played on a weekend in summer. Appointing referees and linesmen takes up a lot of time and then you also have the assessments. There is also a huge amount of work in preparing for the seminars. A lot of improvements have been made, but we have to take it a stage further," he added.

He is also in favour of inter-county referees umpiring games, acknowledging that top referees John Bannon and Dickie Murphy recently opposed the idea. His reasoning is that referees would be better at reporting off-the-ball incidents.

He also feels that the powers of linesmen should be expanded. Currently, they are limited to calling the referee's attention to incidents which occur off the ball. "He could see a fellow picking the ball off the ground right in front of him, but he can't tell the referee.

"It might be possible to link an umpire at either end with the referee, but you don't want to have too many voices in the referee's ear. The referee himself doesn't want it either!"

He accepts effecting changes is difficult claiming there is still opposition even to using cards.