McEnaney tells refs to ignore Twitter criticism

Referees chief Pat McEnaney has told his officials not to respond to criticism of them by players on Twitter.

The Monaghan man recently informed referees that the National Referees Committee won’t be countering the derogatory remarks made about some of their members’ performances by inter-county players on the social networking site.

Explaining why, he cited the recent example of Welsh rugby referee Nigel Owens taking umbrage on Twitter with some of the newspaper comments made about his officiating in the second Test between Ireland and New Zealand.

“I just don’t Twitter, I don’t know much about it but I certainly don’t believe in referees getting involved in it,” stated McEnaney. “If you take Nigel Owens who replied to some of the criticism he got — my lesson from that was it didn’t go down very well. It didn’t look very well from where I was standing.

“When people use Twitter it’s in writing but I’ve told the team that we’re not going to go down that road and we don’t need that battle.’’

However, McEnaney admits the standard of refereeing in football in this year’s Championship has not been as high as the level in hurling.

At last Wednesday’s meeting, he made it clear to a small number of football referees that their performances had to improve.

“I think hurling is going reasonably well. I think we have a couple of reasonably good performances over the weekend.

“I thought James McGrath [Galway v Kilkenny] was very good and Diarmuid Kirwan [Clare v Dublin] was quite good. He [Kirwan] made a couple of mistakes but overall the hurling is going particularly well.

“There are improvements to be made in football. It’s my job and their job to do that and reach a level that’s acceptable to everybody.’’

Going into the busiest weekend of the Championship, McEnaney knows more games — 12 in total across football and hurling — will mean more scrutiny of officials.

“That’s the business we’re in and it’s a big challenge to my team but that’s what they want.”

He made no bones about the reward system he will operate for those referees who perform well.

“The big games are coming thick and fast now and we need to perform as a group — it is as simple as that.

“If you don’t perform, the list gets shorter for the All-Ireland quarter-finals and semi-finals. You’ve young Barry Cassidy in his first Championship and he’s about to referee his fourth game this weekend. He’s done very well for us and that’s why he’s refereeing games at this stage of the Championship.

“Normally, when you bring in a few new fellas you just give them a taste of the Championship and maybe two games but he’s going into his fourth because he’s performing. That’s what selection of referees is going to be based on.”