Limerick’s Hawk-Eye appeal appears set to fall foul of Guide

Limerick’s objection to their minors’ All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Galway last Sunday is likely to fail on the basis of a rule in the GAA Official Guide.

Rule 7.10 (n) states a result cannot be contested on the basis of a referee incorrectly permitting a score or failing to allow a score.

The rule is the same one which foiled any chance of Louth — although they didn’t appeal — earning a replay following Joe Sheridan’s illegal goal for Meath in the 2010 Leinster SFC final.

The Limerick County Board may wish to go as far as the Disputes Resolution Authority and the Hawk-Eye mistake would appear on the surface to be a different issue to Martin Sludden’s error three years ago.

However, it was Sunday’s referee Fergal Horgan who had the final decision on Barry Nash’s scoring attempt — as much as match officials have been encouraged to accept Hawk-Eye’s verdicts.

The rule reads: “An Objection or Counter-Objection may only be upheld on the grounds (i) that an Infraction has been committed rendering the Defending Party liable to the penalty of Forfeiture, with Award of the Game to the Objector, or (ii) that a score allowed by the referee was not recorded by him or that a score was incorrectly recorded by him, thereby affecting the result of the Game; however no Objection or Counter-Objection may be submitted on grounds that a referee had incorrectly allowed or failed to allow a score.”

Regardless of what happens with the objection, Galway County Board secretary John Hynes indicated they will not be offering a replay to Limerick.

Hynes, confirming they had received no contact from Limerick or Croke Park as of yet, said: “We have a panel of players who won a match and are preparing for an All-Ireland final.

“As far as Galway is concerned, the team won the game in extra-time and that we, as a county committee, are supporting the team in preparing for the final on September 8.”

Galway hurling board chairman Joe Byrne endorsed Mattie Murphy’s comments in yesterday’s Irish Examiner and highlighted they had been the victims of an injustice at the same stage last year.

“We had our best player sent off in an All-Ireland minor semi-final last year, one of his yellow cards was wrongly shown to him.

“We are looking ahead to September 8. [Yesterday] morning, I had a meeting preparing for the final. Until we hear from Croke Park and we mightn’t hear from them at all, we won’t be doing anything.”