Life getting harder for men in the middle

“Sport in general thrives on controversy and the referee, irrespective of anything else, is always going to be that controversy so we can’t do without them.”

The words of former inter-county hurling referee Aodan MacSuibhne and poignant ones after a season in which the game’s men in black have been damned like never before.

After sending off Pat Horgan in the Munster final, James McGrath’s appointment for today’s replay wasn’t exactly celebrated in Cork.