Brian Gavin: James Owens unfortunate to miss illegal hurley drop before key Limerick goal

ILLEGAL: Limerick's Aidan O’Connor handpasses the sliotar onto teammate Gearóid Hegarty, not pictured, in the lead up to Limerick's second goal. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Sunday was James Owens’ third outing of the championship and he’s a referee who has really discovered his confidence.

He was correct in so many of his calls including yellow cards for Adam English and Seán Walsh. The penalty decision at the end, when Mike Casey pulled the jersey of Austin Gleeson, was also right.

However, and crucially from a Waterford point of view, he did not see Aidan O’Connor dropping the hurl when he set up Gearóid Hegarty for Limerick’s second goal.

To be fair to Owens, his view was hampered by a run Jamie Barron was making back to help his defence. It took me two looks on TV to see that O’Connor had played the ball illegally.

It was unfortunate for the referee and it did have a bearing on the game because with that score Limerick went into overdrive and Waterford were a beaten team.

With the new hurling advisory group putting the game under the microscope, maybe they could look at introducing technology for red cards and goal validity. I’ve mentioned it before but it’s a discussion that becomes more pressing with every passing year and all that players are putting into the game.

Waterford are out now and Limerick may well have gone on to win the game without that Hegarty goal but a limited version of a video assistant or even simply letting the referee have a second look would be worth it.

Hurling referees have been doing well in this championship but they remain under pressure and under the spotlight to get everything right. In a game like hurling, that is simply impossible but any help to get the big calls right should be explored.

Saturday was a busy hurling day between Leinster and Munster. Over the four games, we had three red cards and two of them cost their teams dearly.

Thomas Walsh was back in action having been sidelined with injury for the first few rounds of the provincial championships. He had little choice in issuing first-half yellow cards to Willie Connors and Seán Rynne for fouls on Mark Rodgers and Andrew Ormond.

Some might say that Connors was fortunate not to have been shown red, but as high as the foul was there wasn’t enough intent in it for a sending off.

Connors was later dismissed for careless use of the hurl against David Reidy and it left Tipperary facing a mountain as much as the writing was on the wall for them at that stage.

It was a very difficult week for Connors after he lost his cousin in a car accident and that should be taken into consideration commenting about what happened in the game.

Rynne’s booking was also questioned by Tipperary fans but I felt the Clare forward made a genuine attempt to make a tackle with his hurl. His eyes were on the ball and in circumstances like that when a referee is adjudicating intent, you can really differentiate between who is a good and who is an okay official.

Walsh gave a cool, composed performance in his first game back and for me he remains in the top two or three referees in the country.

A red card cost Wexford dearly in their game against Offaly. They had been protecting a four-point lead at the time. Conor Foley received a black card for hauling down Offaly’s Brian Duignan and had earlier picked up a silly yellow card for chopping the hurl out of Eoghan Cahill’s hand in the first half.

Cahill converted the resultant penalty and Offaly went onto win and Wexford have nothing to play for in their remaining game at home to Galway next weekend.

Wexford’s back-line were shown five yellow cards in total while Offaly only picked up two. It was Seán Stack’s third game of the championship. He had the handbrake on for the first two games but here let it off and barely put a foot wrong.

Eamonn Furlong got his chance in the Kilkenny-Kildare game, and he was correct to issue two yellow cards to Cian Kenny. The first was careless use of the hurl around the head and the second was a deliberate trip with the hurl and Kilkenny were reduced to 14.

On Sunday afternoon, we had a historic Leinster senior football final in Croke Park, which Westmeath felt they should have had the chance to win in normal time. Kevin O’Sullivan was penalised for a perfect shoulder while Westmeath argued they should been awarded a free before the hooter sounded, but David Coldrick thought otherwise.

In Armagh, Paddy Neilan had a fine game. Monaghan ended extra-time with 14 men as Darragh McElearney was rightly sent off.