Gavin: Put Hawk-Eye in provinces

Jim Gavin has declared his utmost faith in Hawk-Eye ahead of the two All-Ireland football semi-finals and advocated an expansion of its role beyond Croke Park and into the provinces.

The fallout from the error which deprived the Limerick minor hurlers of a point in last week’s All-Ireland semi-final has been such that the technology will be monitored closely over the next two weeks. But the Dublin manager has described calls to scrap Hawk-Eye as a knee-jerk reaction and lauded the GAA for investing in a global leader in the area of score detection.

“There has been a massive lesson there learned by Hawk-Eye,” he said. “The GAA sub-contracted to an external company who get people to come in and look after the equipment for them.

“They have obviously done their root cause analysis and found out what the problem was so we would fully endorse it. It is quite inventive and creative in getting it in, lets get it out to provincial grounds now.

“Let’s have our provincial championship games having this technology as well. I know it is an expense but players go to such lengths and when we are all volunteers, management teams and players, you want… this is a tool they can use and they have, in fairness to them.”

He added: “Thurles should have it, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Belfast should have it now when the new stand is built at Casement Park. I would say wherever the provincial finals are played they should have it.

“Why should Croke Park only have it? It makes sense to invest in it. As I said, if it is going to help the officials in any small way it is a progressive step.”

Gavin will not be in HQ tomorrow to witness the technology’s latest trial and Mayo’s meeting with Tyrone as he concentrates on Dublin’s own preparations for their date with the Kingdom seven days later.

Rumours during the week suggested goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton and defender Jack McCaffrey were injury concerns ahead of that fixture but Gavin claimed otherwise and brushed aside concerns about Darren Daly.

“They are okay. We thankfully have a clean bill of health. Jack cut his finger in a session 10 days or more ago now. The only players who won’t be available are Cormac Costello and Tomás Brady.”

Alan Brogan will be available for selection for the first time since he featured against Mayo in last year’s semi-final after what has been a nightmare 11 months battling injury. The former Footballer of the Year was sidelined with an osteitis pubis problem which required surgery and his comeback, already delayed, was put back further when he suffered a hamstring injury leading in to the quarter-final against Cork.

“Alan is playing with us again but, no more than any player, he needs to prove himself in training,” said Gavin. “That has been the mantra we held with the players all season.”