TV or not TV - that is the question!

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

bocerty wrote:

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

Reminds me of 2003

bocerty wrote:

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

like marsden getting sent off in 2003? You're right, its not nice.

As far as Mickey Harte goes, he annoys my head at the best of times, whilst i see his point about it should be the same for all county teams (ie everyone trial by media or not). I do think though that he should concentrate his efforts on getting his players to cut out the dirty play. If they cut it out it wouldnt matter whether there was tv cameras there or not.

I thought Mickey Harte liked being on tele.

samin10 wrote:

bocerty wrote:

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

like marsden getting sent off in 2003? You're right, its not nice.

As far as Mickey Harte goes, he annoys my head at the best of times, whilst i see his point about it should be the same for all county teams (ie everyone trial by media or not). I do think though that he should concentrate his efforts on getting his players to cut out the dirty play. If they cut it out it wouldnt matter whether there was tv cameras there or not.

Samin with all due respect i dont think any of the incidents in the Derry game could be classed as dirty play - they are incidents that happen week in week out all over the country and none of them that nasty (though as i said earlier i still dont know what Penrose done). At the end of the day intercounty footballers/hurlers are no pushovers - if someone tries to aggravate them then the likelihood is they will give as good as they get back.

bocerty wrote:

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

Look Boc, i'm a qualified referee, i've refereed in the Derry leagues and ran the line at National Hurling League games and i can tell the difference between a ref having a good game and making one or two mistakes that have cost a team victory and a referee that has been equally as bad for both teams, can you?

Perhaps you should look at the reason why referees are becoming scarce? With some people, they can do no right!

The GAA aren't against Tyrone, this mentallity makes me laugh, and a little embarrassed for them to be honest.

bocerty wrote:

samin10 wrote:

bocerty wrote:

bald eagle wrote:So if a ref makes 1 match changing balls up in a game, he's had a bad game in your view?

put it like this BE - if that match changing balls up happened to be in an Ulster or All Ireland Final and it cost Derry a title what would your answer to your own question be????????????????????

like marsden getting sent off in 2003? You're right, its not nice.

As far as Mickey Harte goes, he annoys my head at the best of times, whilst i see his point about it should be the same for all county teams (ie everyone trial by media or not). I do think though that he should concentrate his efforts on getting his players to cut out the dirty play. If they cut it out it wouldnt matter whether there was tv cameras there or not.

Samin with all due respect i dont think any of the incidents in the Derry game could be classed as dirty play - they are incidents that happen week in week out all over the country and none of them that nasty (though as i said earlier i still dont know what Penrose done). At the end of the day intercounty footballers/hurlers are no pushovers - if someone tries to aggravate them then the likelihood is they will give as good as they get back.

i agree that much of what went on was handbag stuff (bit like meath and dublin a couple of years ago, just with less players involved), actually agree with alot of what harte has been saying. It just seems like he is always moaning and complaining about something.

I think its great that these things are shown up on television. It might rid the game of them eventually. You see no such shennanigans at our games.

Some valid points here and perhaps the only area where rugby is ahead of Gaelic games. Retrospective punishments should be out of the referees hands and lie with the CCCC. Also shows up Micky Harte throwing a tantrum because of Tyrone being on the telly and analysed a lot. Thats the price of success Im afraid Micky boy


GAA should have a citing system similar to rugby
SEAN MORAN

On Gaelic Games: Video evidence remains a valid tool in the GAA’s
campaign against indiscipline but referees shouldn’t have to review
their own decisions

IT WAS the incident that in the eyes of most people marked the
beginning of the end for Ireland last Saturday. Prop Cian Healy
committed a professional foul on French scrum half Morgan Parra.
English referee Wayne Barnes saw it clearly enough to walk up and flash
a yellow card immediately. Healy walked straight to the sin bin leaving
his team-mates to reap the whirlwind.

What slim chance they had of avoiding that fate ended when Jerry
Flannery launched a spectacular foul on an opponent and a promising
penalty was reversed.

A friend primarily interested in Gaelic games texted me to note how
clockwork the whole process was: foul, punishment and acceptance. It’s
not always like that even in rugby – and the game has had recent issues
with consistency of suspension policy – but, by and large, authority is
accepted and responsibility taken for indiscipline.

From a disciplinary perspective, the more important aspect of rugby is
that crime doesn’t pay. Indiscipline will cost your team. Sides cling
on grimly during the period when a player is sin binned but in general
they concede scores. Players get cited for misbehaviour and pick up
suspensions.

It didn’t take long for such musings to acquire further topical edge.
Tyrone lined out the following day against Mayo and their fate, a
one-point defeat, was contributed to by the absence of three players,
Martin Penrose, Justin McMahon and Conor Gormley, all of whom had been
suspended after referee Pat McEnaney had revised his original opinion
of their foul play after viewing video evidence of the Tyrone-Derry NFL
match.

On Saturday night Eoin Bradley had suffered a similar fate as a result
of the same process and wasn’t able to play when his county lost to
Dublin.

The grumbling wasn’t long building into a tumult of indignation and the
old chestnut of ‘trial by media’ has been much displayed in the public
arena in the past couple of days. It’s not fair, the argument runs,
that players in televised matches aren’t allowed to foul without
consequences once they can do so behind the referee’s back.

It has been no surprise that Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has been to
the forefront of this. His problems with television evidence have been
well-aired.

Extraordinarily, neither Harte nor Derry manager Damian Cassidy have
made any bones about the facts of the matter. All four players
initially opted for hearings after the suspensions were proposed but,
despite the apparatus of the Central Hearings Committee having been
assembled in time to expedite the process, the requests were all
dropped on the Saturday and the bans accepted.

Is it reasonable to argue that teams on camera are being discriminated
against in comparison to players in matches with less box-office
appeal? Only to the extent that robbers arrested because a shop has
CCTV might launch a defence on the grounds that other premises without
such protection were robbed with impunity. Or that it’s unfair on
drunken drivers that someone equally inebriated drove home on a
different road without hindrance because there was no police check in
that direction.

And if someone fond of driving home over the limit lived at the end of
a road where there were frequent checks wouldn’t they modify their
behaviour rather than complain that the police presence was unfair?

These comparisons aren’t intended to draw equivalence between violent
crimes or drink driving and indiscipline in Gaelic games but simply to
address the argument that failure to punish every wrongdoing shouldn’t
mean that all miscreants escape without sanction.

Whenever human arbitration is involved there will be mistakes. Even
without error there will be incidents that a referee can’t be expected
to see. Should the failure for whatever reason by a referee to punish
adequately a red-card offence in a Division Four match invalidate
correct imposition of the rules in a Division One fixture that happens
to be on television?

The crisis of indiscipline clearly demands that all instances be dealt
with and, if some of that corrective action follows on from video
evidence, it’s hard to see the problem.

Perhaps Harte’s point of view is partly based on his not believing
indiscipline to be that big a problem. A year ago during the
experimental disciplinary rules trial, the Tyrone manager spoke out
against the rationale behind the proposals.

“You’d think that the GAA, and football in particular, was in total
crisis, a discipline crisis,” he said. “There is so much talk about the
rules, and indiscipline, almost as if it’s anarchy out there. It’s not
true. There are certain incidents that have to be dealt with and always
will be, but 95 per cent of what we’re doing is positive, is great to
see.”

Yet the association at large appears to have a different view. Last
year’s congress might not have passed the experimental rules but the
mood of concern about cynical play and indiscipline was such that the
proposals were overwhelmingly approved, 177-100 or 63.8 per cent, just
short of the two-thirds majority required for adoption.

Does this mean that all is well within the GAA’s disciplinary
structures? No it doesn’t. Referees still struggle to attain a level of
consistency on the field and frequently bottle hard decisions.

An unfair pressure on them is the subject of a motion for this year’s
congress. Recently retired intercounty referee John Bannon’s club,
Legan Sarsfields, has proposed a motion bringing to an end the system
of referees reviewing video evidence and recategorising offences.

Bannon was involved at the sharp end of this when in his last match he
failed to red card Cork’s John Miskella during last August’s
All-Ireland semi-final. Disappointingly, for a referee who had always
dealt firmly with foul play, he then declined to review that decision
but his club’s argument for congress is a sensible one and perhaps
sheds some light on his decision of six months ago.

It simply argues that it isn’t the place of a referee to review his
decision – not that video evidence is wrong or that referees shouldn’t
be overruled. The procedure has always been ridiculous and was cooked
up on the spurious grounds that referees shouldn’t be overruled by
committee.

Instead they have simply been forced to overrule themselves and there
have been complaints that if they don’t do so, their match allocation
suffers. It’s hard to see what the problem is with such a consequence.
If referees wilfully refuse to do their job they shouldn’t be asked to
take important matches.

But the fact remains that, like rugby, the GAA should have a citing
system and in the Central Competitions Control Committee they have the
ideal body to fulfil that role. Instead of asking the referee to finger
a miscreant on foot of video evidence, the CCCC should simply do it
themselves, propose a suspension and prosecute the case if the player
in question requests a hearing.

Such a reform wouldn’t prevent the squealing over video evidence but it would put the process on a more solid foundation.