Costly refereeing decisons

Yet again, an important game was decided* by an over zealous official. Meath were denied a fair chance of victory the moment the ref disallowed Geraghty's goal. The public were denied a grandstand finish to a good game, and the fairytale return was ruined. So what lessons can be learned from yesterday?

1) Ref must be held accountable. If decisions like these are going to cost teams a chance of victory, then the officials must be punished accordingly. Syl Doyle should not get any more games this summer.
2) It is completely wrong that a referee can select his own son and his brother to umpire a championship game. The process for selecting umpires must change.
3) It is completely wrong that a referee can have no confidence whatsoever in his own umpire's decision-making. The umpires should be far, far, more qualified.
4) The square ball rule is comical. The fact that the player can't be in the square before the ball only complicates it's policing. It's in need of serious review with result being massive amendment or total abolishment.

*Paddy O'Rourke's freekick would have levelled at 0-13 to 1-10 and the whole course of events changed. Meath's shot at victory was seriously hindered by that decison. Meath won many games over the years they did not deserve to win. Nobody knows that we wouldn't have pulled it out of the fire again.

In answer if the goal stood then the course of the game would of altered and the 45 of free that O Rourke kicked may never of happened. You have to take this into consideration as well.
Bad decision, yes it was have to admit knowing Syl well surprised he gave it but at least on the sunday game the named the real culprits in this - the assessors.
Intercounty games are reffed in a totally different manner and way to club games i.e. common sense is not allowed except for one official who seems to be able to do as he pleases.
If he didn't issue those yellows and that red (it was for a striking action hence a red) he wouldn't get another game his assessment will be high.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Yet again, an important game was decided* by an over zealous official. Meath were denied a fair chance of victory the moment the ref disallowed Geraghty's goal. The public were denied a grandstand finish to a good game, and the fairytale return was ruined. So what lessons can be learned from yesterday?

1) Ref must be held accountable. If decisions like these are going to cost teams a chance of victory, then the officials must be punished accordingly. Syl Doyle should not get any more games this summer.
2) It is completely wrong that a referee can select his own son and his brother to umpire a championship game. The process for selecting umpires must change.
3) It is completely wrong that a referee can have no confidence whatsoever in his own umpire's decision-making. The umpires should be far, far, more qualified.
4) The square ball rule is comical. The fact that the player can't be in the square before the ball only complicates it's policing. It's in need of serious review with result being massive amendment or total abolishment.

*Paddy O'Rourke's freekick would have levelled at 0-13 to 1-10 and the whole course of events changed. Meath's shot at victory was seriously hindered by that decison. Meath won many games over the years they did not deserve to win. Nobody knows that we wouldn't have pulled it out of the fire again.

4) Goalkeepers have to be protected can't have forwards knocking them to the ground to score goals...Video ref for square balls might help.. Refs are under pressure this year to get square ball right bad call by syl..

Loyal Kildare beat you pulling up the goal would have made no difference..

Saying that Meath didn't deserve to win is irrelevant. Meath could have won without deserving to. The point is that referee's decisions should not affect the course of the game whether or not that course of events involves the best team winning.

1: Umpires by and large are totally useless. Whoever shouts the loudest at them usually gets the decision. I think it is those stupid white coats......

2: refs will always make mistakes, just like the players.

3: The square ball rule is a nonsense. I have a Cavan supporting friend who STILL rightly moans about a first round game V Donegal in 1992 when Cavan were robbed.

Donegal went on to win Sam........I think it is beyond science to arrive and make contact with the ball AFTER it has arrived in the square....the rule is a nonsense......

4: Kildare would have won anyway.

Graham Geraghty's goal
Brian Farrell's red card
Bernard Brogan's free
Michael Murphy's penalty
Emmett McGuckian's foul
Tomas O'Connor's trip

A lot of crucial decisons in 2011 - a lot of wrong decisions in 2011.

There is no perfect way to officiate our games....mistakes will always be made. The fact is though that the vast majority of the time the better team on the day wins.

Furthermore, teams should not be allowing themselves to get into situations where they are relying on the decision of officials...who at the end of the day are just as human as the players. I think of the Leinster final last year and I wonder why two Louth backs crashed into eachother in what should have been a routine defensive clearance...I look at last year's Down V Kildare game and think to myself...inside or outside the square you just cannot let Benny Coulter get his hand anywhere near a high ball in the vicinity of the goalmouth.

The fact is this....for every crucial refereeing mistake there is also a crucial mistake by a player at some stage in the game that does not make the headlines. What about the player who takes a shot and puts it wide rather than releasing it to a player in a better position? What about the defender who foolishly tugs the jersey of a player who is ultimately going nowhere and allows him an easy free? And what about the player who misses an easy free?

Gaelic football is a very hard game to officiate, and the amateur status of the sport makes this more difficult. It is a fast game, there is a lot to look out for both on and off the ball. And I'm not sure that video technology is the way to go.

I agree that officials should not be relying on karma to cancel out their mistakes....but neither should players and management be able to so boldly blame officials when they themselves make crucial mistakes which cost scores.

Officials will always make mistakes, just like in any sport (I have seen rugby and tennis officials get decisions wrong in situations where video technology is not used). The sad thing is though that the cynics are usually the ones that aren't going to do anything about the situation but simply sit back and complain at how bad it all is.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Graham Geraghty's goal
Brian Farrell's red card
Bernard Brogan's free
Michael Murphy's penalty
Emmett McGuckian's foul
Tomas O'Connor's trip

A lot of crucial decisons in 2011 - a lot of wrong decisions in 2011.

Michael Murphy's disallowed point at the start of the Ulster final.
No sending off for the elbow on McBrearty.
No sanction for the stamp by Ryan McMeanamin on Paddy McGrath in the League.

That is fair enough Bluearmy. However, it is the same mistakes which are being made time and again, and are yet to be addressed:

1) Controversial square ball rule.
2) Inconsistencies with decisions.
3) Refusal to train umpires, and consult with them over goalmout infringements.
4) CCCC have hidden agendas.

The best team will win - 99 times out of 100 - but usually the direction of the game is massively altered once the referee gets a big call wrong. E.g. Derry/Donegal, there was no best team at HT. But immediately after HT when a controversial penalty was awarded, Donegal got on top. Game took a new direction as a result of the wrong penalty decision.

Some of these things can be put down to human error but when they are repeatedly being made and repeatedly blamed on human error, it gets frustrating. Surely the square ball should be reviewed and the rule-book updated to cover new scenarios which happen regularly in the modern game. Umpires should be more qualified and better trained too. If even half these things had been looked at last winter, Graham Geraghty would have had a fairytale return and Meath might still be in the championship.

The flexibility of referees with regard to interpretation of rules is also quite astonishing. They bring in a new hand pass rule, and the referees blow for a bad handpass every thirty seconds. Public give out and the referees are just told to ignore it. Three or four weeks ago, Colm O'Rourke has an outburst in The Sunday Game over the number of frees and the number of cards. All of a sudden, the number of frees and the number of cards are greatly reduced. No consistency here. In fact, it appears, the rules change from week to week. As well as this, one referee's understanding of some situations is different to others, so nobody knows what to expect anymore.

RMDrive wrote:

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Graham Geraghty's goal
Brian Farrell's red card
Bernard Brogan's free
Michael Murphy's penalty
Emmett McGuckian's foul
Tomas O'Connor's trip

A lot of crucial decisons in 2011 - a lot of wrong decisions in 2011.

Michael Murphy's disallowed point at the start of the Ulster final.
No sending off for the elbow on McBrearty.
No sanction for the stamp by Ryan McMeanamin on Paddy McGrath in the League.

RMDrive - Were the first two incidents "costly" in your opinion?

Well personally I think if you doubled the training that officials receive you would still get big mistakes. Premiership and international referees are professional and subject to in-depth training...look at the howlers they make and soccer in my opinion is an easier game to referee than Gaelic football.

Yes it has been frustrating that new rules have been brought in that are for the most part baffling.....the hand-pass rule is ridiculous and tends to go against 'quick hands' teams. I myself was always a fan of the palm flick instead of the fist at close range and now I've had to iron out that habit because of some stupid rule that is sometimes ignored and sometimes enforced with an iron fist.

The square ball rule is just plain weird.

But this thread is about costly refereeing decisions and I am not one for going on about them. I have seen my own county suffer horrendous decisions which cost us dearly. I've said it before and I'll say it again....while officiating can always improve, so too can the standards of the players and management in minimising their own errors of judgement which cost them games. Because as long as officials are used as scapegoats for the failures of players and management the debate on officiating can never be constructive.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:

RMDrive wrote:

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:Graham Geraghty's goal
Brian Farrell's red card
Bernard Brogan's free
Michael Murphy's penalty
Emmett McGuckian's foul
Tomas O'Connor's trip

A lot of crucial decisons in 2011 - a lot of wrong decisions in 2011.

Michael Murphy's disallowed point at the start of the Ulster final.
No sending off for the elbow on McBrearty.
No sanction for the stamp by Ryan McMeanamin on Paddy McGrath in the League.

RMDrive - Were the first two incidents "costly" in your opinion?

I think that any discussion of the if's but's and maybe's of the Ulster final must take them into account. They cost us nothing on the day as wel still won.

A team that blames the referee for a defeat never have and will get anywhere. Yes there are bad decisions in matches but in most cases the losing team should look at their own faults and weaknesses first because usually those are reasons for losing the match.

Yet more controversy in the weekend's GAA games. And quelle surprise, it's our two old friends, the square ball and the umpires.

1. Was Joe McMahon in the square before the ball? Laws of physics would dictate he was.
2. Was the Derry player in the square? His run and jump was a bit angled than McMahon, so I guess it's more likely he wasn't.

But in both instances, we can't be sure. And this raises the point of the square ball. It is far too hard to officiate and it's only purpose is two protect the goalkeeper, yet both goalkeepers were gone from the equation in both incidents on Saturday. If there was any justice in the rules, both goals would have stood.

3. Umpire changing his mind from wide to point in Limerick game.
4. No free for 'foul' on Ian Ryan.
5. Resulting free a mile wide. One umpire waves wide while the other umpire puts up a white flag. Ref awards point.

Wexford had the game stolen from them, no doubt about that. The game should have went to extra-time. A very cruel end to Wexford's run in the All-Ireland championship. Referee Derek Fahy was in a good position to see the ball went wide, and between them, the umpires should have copped it themselves.

Agreed Loyal what can we do to stop this? The umpire with the best view for Limerick's final 'point' was the one who waved it wide. I see Anthony Masterson, the Wexford goalkeeper made these comments:

Wexford goalkeeper Anthony Masterson has stated that Limerick's winning point in the sides' All-Ireland SFC round four qualifier on Saturday was wide and should not have stood.

The Yellowbellies' players and fans at O'Moore Park, Portlaoise, were furious with referee Derek Fahy for allowing Ian Ryan's last-gasp winning free to stand even though one of his umpires had waved it wide.

The controversial point won the game for Limerick and ended Wexford's interest in the Sam Maguire for another season.

Speaking to RTÉ Sport's John Kenny, Masterson said: "It looked like it was a yard wide. It's just mind-baffling. We've given up so much of our life and a decision like that cost us the game.

"Granted, we let them back in the game, that shouldn't have happened, but when games come down to things like that, like, you give up so much time of your life and you train so much and you give up everything - your social life, you miss your family, the whole thing.

"And a decision like that, it costs you your Championship. We had a chance of a replay [and] going into an All-Ireland quarter-final."

Masterson also recounted the crucial moments when Fahy awarded the point to Limerick.

He said: "The referee comes in and the umpire that's on the right-hand side says 'it's wide', had no hesitation. The one [umpire] on the far side says 'it's a point'.

"The referee comes in, he was disgusted with his two umpires, asked the two of them 'what was it?', the lad that said 'it was wide' said 'it was wide'. The other lad says 'a point'.

"He consults with one umpire and one umpire only, the lad who said it was a point. The fella that said it was wide just walked away. As you can see on the camera he walks away into the background - just hides.

"[He] Comes up to me after the match and says 'it is what it is, it's done now'.

"How long are we going to let decisions like this go on in the GAA. Like, I'm mad right now and I need to calm down a bit, but we're out of the Championship. We've given up everything like and we're going out of the Championship. It's so disappointing."

Masterson also made reference to Louth's controversial defeat to Meath in the final of the 2010 Leinster SFC, when Joe Sheridan's illegal goal was allowed to stand for Meath, as a further example of bad refereeing in Gaelic football.

He added: "We've seen Louth last year being robbed. There were nine, ten decisions that went against us today - absolutely mind-baffling.

"The whole country knows how bad [Fahy] is as a referee and I can't understand how he gets games. He just gets put into big, massive Championship matches.

"It's typical of the GAA: Wexford and Limerick stuck away into Portlaoise, given a bad referee, let them go at the Championship.

"Worry about all the other teams, put them in Croke Park. [It's] pure typical like - [a] decision like that. Absolutely mind-baffling, we're gone out of the Championship.

"We go home now back to our clubs and Limerick go on to an All-Ireland quarter-final. Fair play to them, but decisions like that shouldn't happen in the GAA.

"How many more decisions are they [GAA umpires] going to get wrong?"

The only problem I would have with Masterson's version is that based on his judgement that a previous point for Limerick was wide. He frantically waved a clear point as wide,although the dopey umpire agreed with him at first. No way from any camera evidence clould the controversial winning point be judged one way or the other as it was so high above the posts.Even hawkeye would baffled. The referee actually had the best view as he was standing around the 21 yard line,dead centre. Wexford really should look at themselves first as they thought they were coasting to victory against 14 men with 70 mins. up and instead of closing out the game they left Limerick get a late crucial goal. Credit is due to Limerick for their never say die attitude but Wexford sould have been home and dry at full time.

RKF - We are not talking about team's shortcomings here. Twice you have posted and glossed over unacceptable refereeing mistakes with stuff about teams only having themselves to blame. That is not the issue.

It is Wexford's perogative to do what they like, be they ten points up or ten points down. It is not, however, the referee's perogative to give a blatant wide as a point or a free for a tackle that was never a free. In fact, it is completely unacceptable when that happens. The Masterson issue you refer to, also highlighted the inadequacy of umpiring standards.

Yet again, a referee was the deciding factor in the outcome of a game - this is unacceptable.

Sorry Loyal, it was not a blatant wide.

Real Kerry Fan wrote:Sorry Loyal, it was not a blatant wide.

The umpire in the best position called it a wide. But if that wasn't enough, the reaction of the Wexford players told you all you needed to know. Ball was wide.

The standard of officialdom is called into question once again.

Loyal the referee was in a perfect position to see if it was wide/score,he called it the way he seen it..Players should be booked for trying to influence umpires by waving everything wide- its hard enough to do that job without having interference from players...

TV evidence was inconclusive anyway

As for the Wexford keeper crying to the media,he had 3 assist's in the game....

mullins wrote:Loyal the referee was in a perfect position to see if it was wide/score,he called it the way he seen it..Players should be booked for trying to influence umpires by waving everything wide- its hard enough to do that job without having interference from players...

TV evidence was inconclusive anyway

As for the Wexford keeper crying to the media,he had 3 assist's in the game....

Explain: One umpire signalling a wide while in the same moment, the other umpire is waving a white flag. You wouldn't get that in a scene from Laurel and Hardy.

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:

mullins wrote:Loyal the referee was in a perfect position to see if it was wide/score,he called it the way he seen it..Players should be booked for trying to influence umpires by waving everything wide- its hard enough to do that job without having interference from players...

TV evidence was inconclusive anyway

As for the Wexford keeper crying to the media,he had 3 assist's in the game....

Explain: One umpire signalling a wide while in the same moment, the other umpire is waving a white flag. You wouldn't get that in a scene from Laurel and Hardy.

Yeah i know-but at the end of the day the referee made the call...Maybe the time has come to let referee's become umpires, and let them have power's to call free's..It's impossible for a ref to keep up with the play

To many bad decisions in the last couple of year's-it's not fair on lads that give everything to lose out on a poor decision -But its up to the GAA to improve things so far this year they have failed..

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:It is Wexford's perogative to do what they like, be they ten points up or ten points down.

Loyal speaks from experience here .....

Maurice Deegan was the villain that day as I recall ....

Jayo Cluxton wrote:

Loyal2TheRoyal wrote:It is Wexford's perogative to do what they like, be they ten points up or ten points down.

Loyal speaks from experience here .....

Maurice Deegan was the villain that day as I recall ....

Disallowed a fairly fine Joe Sheridan goal as far as I can remember...

Derry's disallowed goal for the square ball was spot on IMO, player was well inside the square and seemed to be running across the square rather than into it. On an interesting note I'm almost certain those were the same two umpires(one of them the refs son I think) that disallowed Gerathy's goal against Kildare.

The ref was in the best position to be looking at that Limerick free (which wasn't a free in the first place). There appeared to be very little space, like most pitches, for the umpire to get a good view behind the goal of the posts, don't know why the umpire the far side raised the flag as he was in no position to be making that call.