Harrington angered by omission of Dublin refs

DUBLIN chairman Gerry Harrington last night described as “absolutely unbelievable” the omission of referees from the capital on the list of officials for this year’s senior championships.

GAA chiefs this week finalised their selection of whistle blowers for the season ahead however no refs from Dublin, Kilkenny, Galway, Clare and Limerick have made the Croke Park list.

Harrington said: “We had a number of referees handling matches during this year’s football and hurling leagues, and for all of them to be overlooked by the refereeing selection panel is absolutely unbelievable.

“It’s not as if we expected five or six referees from Dublin to be selected for the senior championships.

“But we did expect to see one referee from Dublin to make both the football and hurling panels. Referees such as Eamonn Morris, Brian O’Shea, Tomas Quigley and Gary McCormack have all proven their capability to handle senior inter-county matches, and this decision is a real kick in the teeth for the likes of them.”

And he warned that the decision could have negative implications in Dublin’s efforts to recruit match officials.

Harrington reasoned: “I’d say that with the exception of Cork, we have more referees on our refereeing panel than any other county. This year, due to the hard work of the referees’ committee, we recruited no fewer than 35 new referees. Obviously that we were delighted with that. But the decision taken by the National Referees’ Committee will make it much more difficult for us in Dublin to recruit new referees because the ambition of the vast majority of people taking up refereeing would be to progress to handling inter-county matches.”

Meanwhile, Harrington revealed that the Dublin Board expect to shortly receive a ruling from the Disputes’ Resolution Authority (DRA) regarding the bid by county midfielder Eamonn Fennell to transfer from O’Tooles to fellow northside club St Vincent’s. O’Toole’s have been opposing Fennell’s attempted move to the Marino outfit for the past two years, but the player’s original club have not stood in the way of him lining out with the Dublin county team.

2010 Referees Panel: Football: P Fox (Westmeath), D Fahy (Longford), C Reilly (Meath), D Coldrick (Meath), M Deegan (Laois), S Doyle (Wexford), G O Conamha (Galway), Marty Duffy (Sligo), Michael Duffy (Sligo), A Mangan (Kerry), M Collins (Cork), M Condon (Waterford), J McQuillan (Cavan), P Hughes (Armagh), J White (Donegal), M Higgins (Fermanagh), P McEnaney (Monaghan), M Sludden (Tyrone).

Hurling: A Stapleton (Laois), B Kelly (Westmeath), J McGrath (Westmeath), B Gavin (Offaly), J Owens (Wexford), C McAllister (Cork), J Sexton (Cork), D Kirwan (Cork), J Ryan (Tipperary), M Wadding (Waterford).