Kelly: It hasn’t been the greatest season in terms of decisions, but we’re only human

ONE of the country’s top referees admits the 2011 season “hasn’t been the greatest” in terms of mistakes being made by match officials, but insists human error will always be an element of games.

Barry Kelly, who took charge of two All-Ireland SHC finals, was speaking on Kfm radio in the wake of the latest high profile error that saw David Coldrick overrule his umpire to disallow Tomás O’Connor’s 40th minute goal in Kildare’s dramatic injury time loss to Donegal in Saturday’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final.

The incident came just a week after the controversy surrounding the validity of Ian Ryan’s match-winning point for Limerick against Wexford.

“My view on it — and obviously I’m speaking to listeners in a county that would feel very hard done by in recent months and indeed the last couple of years as regards umpiring decisions — is I don’t think you can eradicate mistakes” said Kelly on the Kildare-based station.

“Once a human being is involved you’re going to get some element of human error. There’s not a player on the Kildare team who didn’t make a mistake. There’s not a player on any team that doesn’t make mistakes. Umpires make mistakes too and referees make mistakes. There will always be mistakes because we’re not robots.”

Calls for the introduction of technology have grown with every high profile error and Kelly added: “In the GAA we’re very slow to embrace change. There have been some very good proposals tried in the National League and then dispensed with quite quickly at Congress. Technology has been used at Wimbledon, in cricket and rugby and you couldn’t say it has adversely affected any game. I accept it hasn’t been the greatest year in terms of GAA officiating as we’ve all made mistakes but it comes with the territory in terms of human error. I can’t see any way around that. We can perhaps minimise it.”