Meyler: TV, not assessors, to blame for ref pressure

WEXFORD boss John Meyler agrees with Brian Cody’s claim that referees are under too much pressure — but feels television, and not match assessors, is the main culprit.

Many feel the time has come to use technology to decide on key moments in games but Meyler believes that those same cameras may be causing referees to adopt a conservative approach.

“There is more pressure on referees and a lot of that is down to the amount of analysis,” he explained yesterday.

“Take the Dublin-Meath football match as an example. You could have stopped the video 14 times with everything that happened. You had the Graham Geraghty incidents, the Dublin goal that might or might not have been square ball so referees are probably thinking that, if they blow for frees, they are covering themselves.”

Cody’s ire was centred on what he called the limits being placed on honest defending by officials keeping one eye cocked on the man in the stand rating their performance. But Meyler is undecided if that is an argument with any merit.

“Going by our game on Saturday, I can’t say. Dublin got eleven frees in the second half and we got three but I haven’t sat down to watch the video yet so I just don’t know. It is hard to call.

“What you generally find is that, when it is more intense, there are less frees. You will find that in the Munster and Leinster finals, I would imagine.”

No-one has any issue with referees enforcing a zero tolerance policy for aggressive fouls but it is the modern tendency among officials to punish every last technical transgression that seems to be the main issue.

Cody talked about the need for common sense and, though Dublin manager Tommy Naughton said yesterday that he has no issue himself with referees, he can see where his counterpart is coming from.

“There are a lot of technical fouls,” said Naughton. “They are fouls going by the rule book but maybe referees should trust their feel for the game a bit more. Referees can tell when a game is getting out of hand. (Cody) has a fair point in that regard.”