Joyce: Black card not the answer to cynicism

One of Gaelic football’s modern greats has warned that cynicism and an “ad hoc” approach by referees to penalising fouls is damaging Gaelic football but that the introduction of black cards is not the answer.

Padraic Joyce won two All-Irelands with Galway, in 1998 and 2001, but the inter-county game he entered in 1997 was a very different environment to the one he left last year after such a distinguished career.

“It is totally different,” he agreed. “The emphasis (in the 1990s) was in getting the ball in early in to what we called the scoring zone. We had a philosophy that if the ball was in there 30 to 35 times in a game and if we were to convert half of them, no matter how good or bad you would be, you would have 17 or 18 scores.