No call on refs for ‘zero tolerance’

REFEREES were not instructed to adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ approach during the first round of the National Football League according to their spokesman, Fr. Seamus Gardiner.

Match officials flashed 41 yellow cards and six reds in three top flight games — Mayo v Kerry, Dublin v Tyrone and Cork v Donegal — leading to a strong rebuke from managers and players.

Fr Gardiner admitted that his committee were trying to distinguish between a deliberate push and an accidental one along with trying to avoid issuing a note (black book) to a player.

He explained: “There were no clips shown at the meeting. It was just an exercise to get referees used to reporting rule offences more clearly.

“For instance where a player pushes another accidentally, that is not a noting offence but referees have tended to issue a warning for such an offence.

“While the rule says a push or a trip is a free, it doesn’t have to be a noting, and we have asked referees to be a bit more wary watching those two areas.

“There were sixteen league games over the weekend and only in two were the referees forced to issue such a large amount of cards. That is not a bad average.

“Football is a far bigger problem for referees than hurling and should be treated as such,” he added.

However Kerry GAA chairman, Sean Walsh has claimed that the new ‘zero tolerance’ approach by referees will result in little free-flowing football during the Allianz Football League.

Walsh made his comments after 15 players received yellow cards in the All-Ireland final repeat between Mayo and Kerry in Castlebar on Sunday.

“I don’t want to criticise the referee Maurice Deegan, who we think is a very good referee and one we like playing under. But what’s happening is that when they are issuing the yellow cards, there is too much stop-and-go in the game. There’s no continuity,” said Walsh.

“It is stopping the game completely, and that was never the intention. If they are going to be issuing yellow cards like that in this league, you are not going to have any flowing football at all.”

Walsh insisted: “It wasn’t a dirty game. There wasn’t a foul stroke at all. It wasn’t that type of game.”

The chairman said the Kingdom were still targeting the League semi-finals. “In 2004, we lost our first round league match in Longford, and we went on to win the league. Last year, we lost our first round game to Mayo and won the league.”

However new boss Pat O’Shea faces further problems with injuries and club commitments likely to rule out four key players from Saturday’s floodlit meeting with Cork at Austin Stack Park.

Definitely out is young attacker Darren O’Sullivan, who has broken a bone in his left hand, and could be out of football for six weeks.

The Kerry boss also confirmed that Tomas Ó Sé is rated a doubtful starter after picking up a hip injury in Castlebar.

While Colm Cooper and Eoin Brosnan played against Mayo, they will not play again until Dr Crokes’ club championship commitments are concluded.

Said O’Shea: “We will get to know more about our squad during the League and we hope to find some new players for the Championship. Because we didn’t play in any subsidiary competition in January, we will have to use the League for that which means we will always be up against it in terms of getting results.”