Cost of technology for disputed scores wide of the mark

INTRODUCING technology to determine whether disputed shots are actually points or wides would cost the GAA millions of euro, according to the association’s head of games Pat Daly.

The issue came to the fore again at the weekend when Cavan’s Jason Reilly kicked what appeared a point against Antrim in the Ulster SFC.

The effort was signalled as a wide. With the game finishing as a draw, the importance of the decision is obvious but it is just the latest in a long line of such disputes including Brian Morley’s ‘point’ for Westmeath against Offaly last summer and UCD’s ‘wide’ against James Stephens in the Leinster club hurling final last autumn.

“There’s been a lot of talk about these Hawkeye systems and about chips in balls and on posts for a while now,” said Daly yesterday.

“We saw it in the soccer this year with Liverpool-Chelsea and in the Man United-Tottenham game as well, but the fact of the matter is that it would cost millions to implement any system like that.

“Anyway, we’re still a bit away from that possibility because, as fast as technology is moving on, it still hasn’t moved enough to implement something like that in the short term.”

Another suggested solution was to fix an additional ‘back net’ onto the goalposts above the crossbar which would catch any ball that dissected the posts. However, this does not seem feasible from an engineering point of view.

“The danger is that the wind could easily bring down the entire structure and you would be running a very real risk of somebody getting killed,” said Daly.

There was also discussion about the possibility of adding a second crossbar to the top of the posts making it necessary for any point effort to go through the two bars. This would make it easier for umpires to judge the flight of the ball but Daly isn’t sure how that would sit with the majority of the GAA’s membership.

“The bottom line is that there is no quick solution to any of this. In Gaelic games we will just have to make do with the system we have for now because even something as simple as fitting a second crossbar would cost a lot to change and there’s no guarantee any of these ideas would even work.”