Fergal Horgan untroubled by All-Ireland final debate about Liam Cahill friendship

Tipperary referee Horgan believes refs will quickly clamp down on sin-bin 'diving'

Tue, 27 Apr, 2021 - 07:00

Larry Ryan

It was a social media squall really, hardly a storm, and the chat around Fergal Horgan’s relationship with Liam Cahill ahead of last year’s All-Ireland final didn’t trouble the match referee for a second.

“Absolutely not. I don’t do social media. You won’t find me on any social media platforms, for obvious reasons, being a referee.”

Teamsheets were circulated online ahead of the final pointing out that Tipp man Horgan had played inter-county hurling with the Waterford manager in the 90s, so might be conflicted in the decider with Limerick. But speaking on the Irish Examiner GAA podcast, Horgan had no interest in playing down that the pair are friends.

“I had the honour of playing with Liam Cahill at minor, U21, and senior and I also was very close to Liam when he was the Tipp minor manager and U20 and U21 manager. I did a lot of in-house games and went through the rules with him. Myself and Liam would be close in that respect.

“Since he took over Waterford I haven’t been involved with him in any capacity. I was only interested in one person the day of the All-Ireland final and that was Fergal Horgan. Obviously, I wished Liam Cahill the best of luck.

I would know John Kiely as well as Liam Cahill. He is the principal in the school in my neighbouring parish in Tipp town. Was I going to go out in an All-Ireland final to help out John Kiely or Liam Cahill, absolutely not? I think I’m a better person than that.

“If I make a mistake I’ll make a mistake genuinely. But as regards going out and not doing the job properly, the All-Ireland final day is not the day to be doing that.”

On a more general point, Horgan makes the point that it’s impossible for referees — no more than players or coaches — to avoid running into friends and colleagues, so small is the hurling world.

“I was privileged to play minor, U21 and senior for Tipperary and Michael Bevans (Cahill’s coach with Waterford) was on those teams too. But I went to college with a lot of lads that went on to play with Limerick and Cork and I refereed them and they were managers afterwards.

“The GAA is a small and tight community and you won’t go anywhere in Ireland with any team where you haven’t crossed swords with someone before, or been friends. It’s every man for himself on the big day.”

Horgan is comfortable with hurling’s new sin-bin rule, though accepts there will be differing interpretations and probably some inconsistency in the early stages of the Allianz Leagues.

“This is a year like no other in that most of the refs on May 8 will have no match refereed since November last year, six months. No National League, no Harty Cup, no Fitzgibbon, no challenge matches. Normally I’d have five or six challenge matches done.

“I refereed the All-Ireland on December 13, I haven’t put a whistle in my mouth since.

“So that’s going to bring its own challenges. The sin-bin brings an extra challenge as we haven’t had a chance to sit down and go through a few matches. It’s going to be something referees will have to come to terms with quickly.”

The drafting of the rule means a player will not be sin-binned unless he brings down an opponent with a goalscoring chance via a pull or trip inside the 20m line. So might that incentivise forwards to go to ground easily?

Absolutely, that will creep in. But we’ll stamp that out fairly quickly, I’d imagine. We’re not that easily fooled. A player feigning a foul or injury, he’s the player that will be yellow-carded. Unfortunately, he can’t be sin-binned but he will be yellow-carded.

“That’s probably one of the easiest fouls in the game to spot quickly, the player diving. I can’t see the referees being caught on that one.”

Horgan is uncertain if the rule change was needed, but expects it to clean up what was becoming an unsightly aspect of the game.

“Last year there were a few cynical fouls, probably more so than other years. But was that because of the time of year we played, winter hurling?

“Can you see in this year’s championship what happened last year with this new rule? Will players deliberately pull down their opponents now this rule is in? Instead of making our lives harder it might make it easier.”