Hawk-Eye Croke Park debut put on hold

Hawk-Eye will not make its GAA debut in Croke Park on June 3.

GAA Director of Games Development Pat Daly said the score detection technology at the stadium suffered “technical problems” in recent trials.

Last year, Croke Park confirmed that the Hawk-Eye system would be used “on a two-year pilot basis for all Championship football and hurling games played in Croke Park Stadium from 2012“.

As the opening senior Championship game there this year, Wexford’s Leinster quarter-final against the winners of Laois and Longford was expected to be the first game to experience Hawk-Eye.

Ironically, the Model county were knocked out of last year’s Championship by a disputed score against Limerick.

However, its debut is now likely to be later in the summer although Daly was reluctant to give a precise date.

“Basically, we won’t be running it until we’re completely satisfied with it. There have been technical problems and they need to be addressed.

“The date June 3 came out from somewhere but we won’t be going live with it until we are happy that everything is in order.”

The system was trialled on both days of last month’s Allianz League final weekend in Croke Park.

“There was some pretty extreme weather that weekend which created problems that hadn’t been anticipated. Whether they were weather associated or system associated only time will tell before we know.”

Meanwhile, Daly insisted the new square ball rule was primarily introduced to Gaelic football to assist referees — not as an attempt to increase the amount of goals scored.

He explained: “The basic reason the committee decided to bring it in was to assist in the consistent application of the rules. Asking referees to have regard for where the ball is, the small rectangle and the attacking player is almost a process of triangulation and was very difficult to determine with any degree of precision.

“If more goals are scored as a by-product then so be it but the reason behind the proposal of the rule change was more consistent application.”

A study of the 2010 Allianz Leagues when the rule was introduced on an experimental basis shows more goals were scored.

For example, in Division 1 an average of 2.1 goals were scored per game compared to 1.39 in ‘09 and 1.36 in ‘08.

Daly added: “Judgement can’t be made over one season. The free-kick from the hand was introduced in 1990 but it took the guts of 10 years to realise the full impact of it.

“I think you will see different approaches being taken by teams to the rule. The big man will be used to exploit it but I don’t think it’s going to significantly alter the game.”

Referees will now be given the power to seek the advice of umpires — when neutral from the teams involved — on the legitimacy of goals such as those that may involve the new square ball rules.