Time to introduce television match officials for biggest games, says top ref

ONE of the country’s top hurling referees believes the GAA should introduce television match officials for high-profile championship matches.

John Sexton, who took charge of this year’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final between Tipperary and Waterford, has welcomed Croke Park plans to improve the standards of top-flight umpires. However he is convinced that authorities need to utilise video replays in an effort to help refs deal with contentious calls.

The Ballyhea club man reasoned: “Video technology is in use at the moment anyway for disciplinary matters in an effort to clean up the games. I’m in favour of anything that helps us to reach the right decisions.

“Maybe you could only do it in the bigger venues, maybe from the All-Ireland quarter-finals on in Croke Park, but if it helps, I’d love to see it brought in. RTÉ or TV3 show the match live – if there’s a serious incident, something the referee needs to know about but missed, he could be informed of that very quickly and then make sure the correct call is made. If that’s coming from someone in the stands, another member of the officiating team – a TMO if you like – then why not?

“People say it would take too much time – I don’t think so. If something is clearly seen – and that’s the kind of incident I’m talking about – then it could all be dealt with quickly. The use of this technology would have to be very clearly defined, and restricted – you couldn’t have every call questioned – but I think it would work.”

There is a danger, however, that the match officials will be controlling a game now not for the benefit of those on the pitch, but for the man in the stand, the assessor.

Limerick native, Sexton disagrees. “The aim for every referee is to be consistent – consistently right, obviously, but consistent. The assessor will MAKE you be consistent, so you have to take notice of him. The assessors are also becoming consistent themselves, because they’re all being trained to. You had ten referees this year in championship hurling, but you also had a set number of assessors, all trained in the same way. Everyone is singing off the same hymn-sheet and that’s what you want. Central Council are the ones who will make the final decisions, but anything that will help us make the right calls, is a plus.”

Sexton has welcomed the new training plans for umpires but is convinced that more power and even something like more space should be handed to the men in white coats to allow them carry out their jobs correctly.

He said: “In Croke Park and Páirc Uí Chaoimh there’s loads of room behind the goals to get into the right position, but in Thurles, for example, you can get caught and can’t get back there fast enough.

“Different venues have different problems for umpires, but all those problems can be overcome. In fairness to Pat Doherty (GAA National Match Officials Manager), he’s been brilliant.

Even the new system he believes, was a positive step forward: “You’re going to get a lot more consistency from a group of ten than from thirty-five from the new system. That was a step in the right direction, but I think it’s going to go further.

“What we need, and what I think we’re going to end up with eventually, is umpires having more power. For things like a square ball they’re going to have to come up with some sort of signals that the umpires can use and give them the authority to call that.”