Gavin: Give linesmen and umpires bigger say

Ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland final, Jim Gavin has called for the GAA to hand more authority to linesmen and umpires.

“I think the referees have been quite good this year. They’re working hard, the supervisors that work with them are trying to help them improve.

“Hawk-Eye has, I think, been a great addition. I would still like to see the umpires getting more involved and the linesmen having a bigger part to play. I think we’ll eventually get there. It is very difficult in the size of the pitch for one referee to manage all that. You just need to look at basketball, for example; you have two sets of very strong, physical men and you need two referees to manage them. You can do the maths; you would fill a lot of courts into a Gaelic football (field). All the linesmen I’ve come across are very competent referees in their own right and they should be given the power to bring the referee’s attention to anything untoward.”