Antrim boss Wallace calls for 'common sense' refereeing

Antrim senior hurling manager Jerry Wallace has called on referees to use "common sense" ahead of this weekend's opening round of the Allianz Hurling League.

The Saffrons face a home match against Wexford this Sunday at Casement Park, and the Cork native says that the men in the middle need to use their discretion on the field of play.

"We are going to have players this weekend participating who are coming out full of enthusiasm - wanting to show their friends, their colleagues, parents and managers what they are about," he said at yesterday's launch.

"I hope that there is a bit of discretion shown on the field this weekend in relation to yellow cards, and early yellow cards, because it is the first real test of the year so it is.

"It will be a fright of God after 10 minutes if a player is gone. What I am encouraging and I know the assessors don't allow for it is that a little bit of common sense should be allowed."

Sports psychology issues are something which grip all teams, and Wallace says in Antrim there is a certain mental barrier which they have started to overcome in recent years.

"You look at the interprovincial semi-final against Connacht, Ulster roared into a six-point lead and then unfortunately you had the enthusiasm of them playing outside of Ulster for the first time this year kicking in and Neil McManus was dismissed for a second yellow card offence. Some people say it was harsh, but it devalued the game.

"The thing about it, there comes a time in the games ahead - and this will be the difference between Antrim and the other teams in the hunting pack - when they'll have to decide in the course of a game that they can win these games.

"They have to arrive now, they have to take their opportunity when it comes. I can have all the best coaches in the world, I can have all the best accessories around the management team but ultimately this current group of Antrim players, if they want to realise their ambitions and their dreams, the National League the way it's structured this year, particularly the group we're in - if you're a young guy above in Antrim, who else would you want to be playing?

"You want to be playing Offaly, you want to be playing Wexford, you want to be playing Clare, Limerick, Laois - the traditions are there already. It's time to arrive, it's time to perform."

A round trip for Wallace between his home near Midleton in County Cork and the Jordanstown Campus where the Antrim hurlers have been utilising the Sports Performance Centre tops 500 miles.

Understandably with the longest journey of any inter-county manager, questions would turn to outside payments to managers.

"That's an ongoing debate in the overall GAA family, it needs mature reflection on where it's going," admitted Wallace.

"Since I've been involved on the inter-county scene I've always got only my expenses and I'm happy to do that. At heart I'm a GAA man, I'm still involved with my own club (Midleton) at home, I was involved with Ballyhea for a few years, did a bit of training with them there.

"I've never looked for a fee, I've always been involved only for what I considered legitimate expenses. I think that's the road the GAA has to stay on."

Wallace was a selector with Antrim before getting stuck in with the Limerick hurlers under Donal O'Grady's tutelage last year. He always had a yearning to go back to the Saffrons camp.

"There was unfinished business in Antrim from my own perspective. I was there two years ago when my good friend Donal O'Grady went back to Limerick. There was a kind of an agreement there dating back to 2004 that if he went back into inter-county management that if he rang me I'd support him - that was a friendship thing.

"When he rang last year to tell me he was taking on the Limerick position I knew then I'd have to leave the Antrim scenario. Three players came down from Antrim to my home in Cork and pleaded with me to come back up.

"They wanted me to stay involved with Dinny (Cahill's) management team, give it another year but I had given that commitment (to Donal) and I was always a man of my word and had to get involved with Limerick last year.

"I knew it was going to be tricky for him, he needed to have the support of someone he knew with him, someone he knew was of the same mindset. He was going in there as a Corkman, so it's always good to have a balance."