Sport

Danny Hughes: Poor refereeing is harming Gaelic football

Referee Marty Duffy was in charge of last Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier between Tipperary and Derry<br />Picture by Philip Walsh
Referee Marty Duffy was in charge of last Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier between Tipperary and Derry
Picture by Philip Walsh
Referee Marty Duffy was in charge of last Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier between Tipperary and Derry
Picture by Philip Walsh

ANYONE who was at Derry’s defeat to Tipperary last Saturday will have gone away satisfied they got full value for their entry fee. 

I have to admit, the journey from Saval to Kingspan Breffni Park isn’t an easy one. You take these things for granted when you are being driven to games in a luxury coach as a player but, as a spectator, you have to navigate through Castleblayney, Ballybay and Cootehill, while running the risk of getting stuck behind the various tractors, driven by men who seem to time their journey perfectly to ensure they are just in front of you.

Now I’ve got that off my chest, we can focus on the match itself. While I didn’t expect a classic between two teams who could hardly claim to have lit up the Championship, we did get an exciting, open game of football. 

Neither team really deserved to lose a game that was finely balanced throughout. The sides took turns dominating for short spells and, just when you thought one team had taken a grip on proceedings, a crucial score changed the course of things. 

Derry have some good footballers, most of whom I am familiar with, but I didn’t realise how good some of Tipperary’s players are, although it is hard to judge any player on the basis of one Championship match. I bumped into Brian Canavan and Billy Joe Padden on my way out of Breffni Park and I asked both of them why neither Down nor Armagh are producing players of the quality of Peter Acheson, Michael Quinlivan and Conor Sweeney.

These guys are good enough to get into any team in the country. Make no mistake about it, Tipperary head into an All-Ireland quarter-final knowing they can give anyone a game if they are as confident offensively and as brave as they were against Derry. 

They pushed up on Thomas Mallon’s kick-outs, pressed high up the field and then retreated when they had to. They mixed a traditional style of play with some modern tactics, kicking the ball long when it was on and playing off the shoulder when required. 

You could see the ‘Kerry’ stamp of Liam Kearns all over his team. Getting to an All-Ireland quarter-final is a huge achievement for Tipperary, as it is for Clare. Huge when you consider that, last year, the calls for a 'B' championship were becoming louder, although Fermanagh railed against those. I was never in favour of a second-tier competition, which shows a lack of respect to the likes of Tipperary, Clare and Longford. After all, that trio have deservedly put Division One teams away this year.

Interestingly, Eugene McGee, a man who has been involved in various committees over the years, has put forward the idea that the Championship could be revamped without diluting the provincial structure. The provincial councils would retain control of their Championships, the only concessions being more games should be played on the same weekend as opposed to the current system, where there is only one Ulster SFC game per week, and that things would get started a few weeks earlier.

Surely, this is not too much to ask. It would be a pity going forward if the shot in the arm needed to give the All-Ireland series a kick-start is not considered. And while we are thinking of ways to improve the inter-county game, the standard of refereeing simply has to improve. 

A large number of reports on last Saturday’s game at Breffni Park pointed out the fact that Marty Duffy had a very poor game and I have to say his performance was one of the worst I’ve ever seen from an official at inter-county level. 

Duffy put a dampener on what was, otherwise, a very entertaining game of football, with a number of his decisions a complete mystery to everyone else in the ground. I have been at plenty of games in the Championship this summer, particularly those involving Ulster teams and, as the year has gone on, the standard of decision-making has deteriorated. 

I would even go as far as to say games are being controlled by officials, including linesmen and umpires, who are over-zealous in an attempt to justify their existence. Unless the pool of referees is doubled, we will never get away from the same people making the same poor decisions week in, week out. 

That’s not to say there haven’t been some good performances from referees this year, but when we are so critical of players and managers, why should we not be equally critical of officials? If you were to say that soccer sets the bar in terms of the standard of refereeing, it is worth considering that we need to double the ‘pool’ available, so that a referee can be ‘dropped’ after below-par performances. 

It is slightly ridiculous that, while we continue to debate ways of revamping the All-Ireland SFC, to rid the game of the hand-passing blight and to improve the discipline of players, we continue to ignore the fact the standard of officiating has not improved in line with the pace and standard of our game.

As anyone present at Kingspan Breffni Park would testify, this is the biggest single factor holding back the development of our game.