Sport

Kenny Archer: GAA referees only contributing to the malady afflicting their reputations

Kenny Archer

Kenny Archer

Kenny is the deputy sports editor and a Liverpool FC fan.

Many people are puzzled as to why Tyrone's Conor McKenna was sent off late on against Fermanagh in the Ulster SFC preliminary round against Fermanagh.<br /> Pic Philip Walsh
Many people are puzzled as to why Tyrone's Conor McKenna was sent off late on against Fermanagh in the Ulster SFC preliminary round against Fermanagh.
Pic Philip Walsh
Many people are puzzled as to why Tyrone's Conor McKenna was sent off late on against Fermanagh in the Ulster SFC preliminary round against Fermanagh.
Pic Philip Walsh

LAWYERS are taught to 'never ask a question to which you don't know the answer.'

Yet they'll surely laugh as they pose this one: 'Contributing to a melee', you say?

'Contributing'?

To 'a melee'?

Define your terms.

What is a 'melee'? And how does one go about 'contributing' to it?

It's typical of the GAA to use a French term - melee - which means 'a confused fight or scuffle' in its Official Guide.

The relevant rule - 7.2b Category III (vi), fact-fans - may as well be written in Serbo-Croat. Or Mandarin.

There's no definition of what constitutes a melee, either in terms of the numbers involved or the severity of the fighting or scuffling involved.

Similarly, although Category III (vi) lists 'Contributing to a melee' as a red card offence, there's no clarity about 'Contributing'.

The only clear bit about it all is 'confused'.

The general populace will tell you that it means 'the third man in' will get punished, because he has escalated matters.

In that case, it should have been a Fermanagh man sent off on Saturday evening, not Tyrone's Conor McKenna, in the latest furore/ shenanigans / controversy over 'contributing to a melee'.

Nothing surprises me about the GAA's disciplinary process and the decisions it comes to - as well as those it declines to even think about making.

Yet if Tyrone attacker McKenna isn't cleared of the ludicrous red card shown to him in injury time against Fermanagh then my mind will truly be boggled.

How referee Joe McQuillan and his match officials came to the decision to send off McKenna - and only McKenna - was remarkable.

If the Eglish man contributed to a melee, then so did at least three Fermanagh players; yet only two were even yellow-carded.

There can be little debate. The video evidence is as clear as day.

Tyrone players have often been in the wrong over the years. On this occasion McKenna was badly wronged.

The row began when Tyrone midfielder Conn Kilpatrick was sent to ground by an opponent after catching a high ball. Fermanagh captain Declan McCusker appeared to give him a slight knee to the back. Kilpatrick responded by grabbing onto McCusker's left ankle.

Matters escalated when another Fermanagh player, James McMahon, then tried to wrestle the ball from Kilpatrick, but also planted his gloved hand into Kilpatrick's face.

Another Fermanagh player, Ryan Lyons, also began tussling with the grounded Kilpatrick.

Only then did the Tyrone forward get involved - but not McKenna, rather Cathal McShane, who walked over only to be pushed out of the way by Lyons, who had joined the fray before any other Red Hand.

And only THEN did McKenna enter proceedings, pushing McMahon over, but with little more force than what Lyons had used; the Fermanagh number five fell to the ground because his legs were entwined with those of Kilpatrick.

Lyons then pushed McKenna over, before Lyons and Brandon Horan grabbed and dragged the shirt off McKenna's back, after he had thrown Horan to the ground. The two Fermanagh players were those later shown the yellow card.

McShane and Fermanagh's Oisin Kelm and Johnny Cassidy then got involved in the ongoing tussle between Kilpatrick and McCusker, but none of them to any great extent.

The two number 17s - Tyrone's Michael Conroy and Fermanagh's Garvan Jones - strolled onto the scene, but did little, the same with Josh Largo Ellis of Fermanagh.

How McQuillan came to the conclusion that McKenna deserved to be sent off more than any of the others is inexplicable.

How he and his officials could truly believe that no Fermanagh player merited equal punishment is also extremely baffling.

Perhaps McKenna will be charged with a Category III (iv) offence, 'Behaving in any way which is dangerous to an opponent', for up-ending Horan.

Surely then the same would apply to McMahon, for his contact with Kilpatrick's eye area?

Overall, no one merited being sent off, not unless Kilpatrick suffered eye damage.

No wonder the Cavan official was walking gingerly outside the Tyrone changing room afterwards; perhaps he had blisters, but he also must have known he'd put his foot in it badly.

At least he was able to walk away, as this was Fermanagh, not Wicklow, although when the heavy Tyrone kit container was wheeled out one Red Hand official did quip sardonically, 'Is Joe McQuillan in there?'

There was no laughter from the Tyrone management, understandably, with a key player potentially ruled out of the forthcoming Ulster SFC quarter-final against Derry.

Red Hands joint-boss Feargal Logan even agreed, up to a point, with the suggestion from one reporter post-match that perhaps the time has come for the GAA equivalent of VAR (Video Assistant Referee), for video evidence to be considered before any player is dismissed in such circumstances:

"Yes, probably, but resources and all that sort of stuff, that's a debate for another day…", said Logan.

It's unlikely that GAA crowds would willingly wait while officials in 'Pairc an Stockley' review video evidence.

Still, the only saving grace so far is that the 'melees' in the Armagh-Tyrone and Donegal-Armagh Division One games, and the Fermanagh-Tyrone Ulster SFC preliminary round, have all occurred when the matches were either over or almost finished.

If a team were to lose a player, or players, in such circumstances for a significant period of time during a game then the rows over 'contributing to a melee' would boil off the scale.

For now, we're left to puzzle over linguistics.

We're already at the point where one wonders if there is a clause in the Official Guide written in invisible ink which states 'Any player wearing a white jersey with red trim should be sent off after any scuffle'.

The other head-scratcher is why 'melee' is a word apparently only understood by referees when they are within Ulster, and not in any of the other provinces.

Consistency is the key to credibility.

So far this season, some of the officiating and disciplinary decision-making has instead been incredible.

Just to be clear, by 'incredible' I mean 'hard to believe'.

'Contributing to a melee'?

Referees are contributing to the damaging of their own reputations.