Loyal Rebel Nash dismisses Shannonside switch claims

CORK’S Anthony Nash has rubbished suggestions that he is to switch allegiance to Limerick.

Nash, who played in goal for Cork against Waterford in the Munster SHC in 2007, has not seen championship action since, while Leeside observers believe the Kanturk clubman could lose out if Cork manager Denis Walsh carries two goalkeepers instead of three next season.

Donal Óg Cusack is the incumbent and Martin Coleman of Ballinhassig impressed when replacing Cusack in the 2008 championship clash with Galway, which means Nash could be omitted from the Cork panel for the 2011 season.

However, Nash stressed yesterday that he would not be transferring to Limerick.

“I get this every year,” said the Charleville-based teacher.

“My family is originally from Limerick and I’m related to Declan and Mike Nash, who played for Limerick during the 90s, so I can understand how people get it into their heads.

“But I’m not transferring to Limerick, no. There’s no truth to that.”

Meanwhile Mickey Harte has dismissed the need for goal-line technology, claiming that an improvement in standards of match officiating is a more pressing need.

The use of the Hawkeye system in Gaelic games is currently being considered, but the Tyrone boss insists that proper consultation between match officials should be sufficient to correctly make calls in contentious situations.

“Even if Hawkeye, with their network of cameras which can create a virtual image of the ball in flight, were to be implemented and the few contentious decisions around goalmouth incidents were eliminated, would the standard of officiating improve? I think not.

“The whole idea of this move for sophisticated goalmouth technology is arguably a knee-jerk reaction to some of the incidents which occurred in this year’s championship. Primarily, the furore over the grave error to award the ‘goal’ to Meath which television footage proved unequivocally was illegal appears to be the catalyst for this consideration,” he said.

“The facts of the matter are that there were human eyes in real time perfectly well placed to make the correct call on his incident.

“Why then should we turn to technology to rectify something which should have been correctly called by the human eye?”

Harte said there is a need for “more definitive roles being attributed to the relevant officials”.

“If the umpire is best placed because of his proximity to the incident to make the call on the technical matters we are discussing, then perhaps his counsel should be taken.”

The treble All-Ireland winning boss added: “The bottom line is Hawkeye, however technologically robust it may be, will not raise standards of refereeing throughout the field and that’s where our efforts would be best placed.”