Hurley-throwing not penalised

Having watched five hurling games this weekend — three live and two on TV, I have a lot of sympathy for referees in how they make a distinction between what’s a free and what’s legitimate.

A lot of the tussles between an attacker with the ball and a defender looks like sumo wrestling. Both players have their hands up trying to fend off the other. Is the forward charging or is the back going beyond the rules to stop him? It’s a tough call because they look like they’re doing the same thing to one another.

However, there can be no sympathy for the inconsistency in officiating the throwing of hurleys. It happened in a number of games and in some cases there was no penalising of the foul at all. It merits a yellow card and yet there was a whole range of decisions made on it. That should not be the case.