Referees have got 75% of black card calls right, says McEnaney

Referees chief Pat McEnaney insists the Championship football panel have mastered the majority of black card decisions.

The Monaghan man believes match officials have been consistent in their vigilance of two of the three cynical fouls which lead to automatic substitutions — the deliberate bodycheck and trip.

However, he accepts there have been a couple of problems with identifying deliberate pull-downs, namely the David Coldrick and Joe McQuillan mistakes in Omagh and Derry respectively.

“I think we’ve all got to accept that the deliberate body-collide we’ve got it right — I think we’ve nailed it. It’s the one thing in our game that’s really improved.

“The deliberate trip, we haven’t failed on that either. To deliberately pull down an opponent, I have to accept on a couple of occasions... we’ve looked at eight Championship matches, we’ve had eight black card incidents in those games and we’ve had six correct calls. That’s a 75% hit rate.

“People say that’s a bit inconsistent — I’ve got to accept that criticism. We met last Wednesday night with the lads and they’ve no problem in holding their hand up with the two calls we got wrong.”

Speaking on The Sunday Game, McEnaney rejected the idea that his group of elite referees were feeling the heat after the early errors.

“People say ‘are they under pressure as a group?’ If you’re under pressure as a referee then you shouldn’t be refereeing.

“They, the group, would feel it’s a challenge. The question I always put to them is ‘is this group up for the challenge?’ I’ve no doubt they are.”