We are now less than two weeks from the start of the wild bird hunting season. Soon, shots will ring out, portending existential danger for, among others, red grouse, mallards, gadwalls, shovellers and tufted ducks. And traditionally, referees, who have come to regard this time of year with much the same trepidation as a golden plover.
In October 2022, then president Larry McCarthy launched a protection programme, Respect the Referee. The backdrop was almost weekly bulletins on spectator and team official outrages directed at referees.
To attend the launch, I had to reschedule a coffee morning. When I explained that I would be attending a new initiative to assist referees, my deferred appointment helpfully suggested something that might also be of interest to game birds: “Arm them?”
In its crusade to save football, however, the Football Review Committee (FRC) may well have provided less lethal measures to rescue refereeing. The impact of the various rule changes or enhancements has been well publicised, especially the solo and go with its tidying up of the flashpoints that occur when a free is awarded.
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The penalties for disrespecting refereeing decisions are also severe – including the 50-metre advancement of disputed frees – and have had the predictable effect of discouraging and vastly reducing dissent and gamesmanship in interactions with referees, allowing match officials clearer minds and greater bandwidth to deal with the primary tasks of upholding rules.
There is, though, more to the FRC’s impact than the obvious starting point of penalising bad behaviour to the extent that it becomes unprofitable. There were also the methods by which the proposals were formulated in the first place.
Speaking to The Irish Times on Saturday, Tyrone All-Ireland referee Seán Hurson strongly made this point.
“We’ve seen changes in the past where there was no consultation with officials and then, rules were maybe not implemented the way that some people thought they should have been implemented,” Hurson said.
“But this time, both FRC and the officials seem to be happy, based on our last meeting there a few weeks ago. They also took to heart different recommendations through the season, which was probably a direct result of some of the meetings.
“So, we felt as referees that we were being listened to, and issues that we were having were being addressed.”
Coincidentally, on the same day Monaghan intercounty referee Martin McNally was making the same point to Colm Keys in the Irish Independent.
“We have had Jim Gavin [FRC chairman] present at nearly every referees’ meeting. We have had input and have been able to bring concerns and recommendations to the FRC. It’s not a case that these things were being dictated to us,” he said.
The easy-going give and take between the committee and referees allowed issues to be resolved without difficulty. This was useful in implementing the stipulation that only captains could speak with the match official.
Hurson felt that restriction was a bit of a straitjacket because he valued talking to players, arguing that all referees knew instinctively the difference between genuine queries, particularly given the experimental nature of the rules, and backchat.
Having sought clarification from Gavin, he was told that “the communication was still okay”.
Maurice Deegan, the former All-Ireland referee and FRC member, who took charge of intercounty practice matches and wrote about for The Irish Times, observed that the knowledge of the new rules on the part of players was very good, often better than in respect of the original rule book.
Deegan also said that the two-way communication illustrated genuine interest in the new rules and making sure they were properly grasped.
This collaborative approach – administrators, match officials, players and management all pulling together – has been central to the success of the rules and their positive impact.
It is true that the new measures are currently under the spotlight during club matches and a season of championships at those levels have yet to be concluded and analysed.
It is also true that perhaps the full ordnance of managerial and coach analysis of the new dispensation has yet to be devised with a view to pressurising referees in whatever grey areas can be identified.
Neither of these potential vulnerabilities have yet come to pass and the goodwill and co-operation that marked the first six months of the FRC framework have set a positive precedent, but there will be anxious eyes on how it is all progressing.
Should the optimal evolution of either game be held back simply to bolster uniformity?
Club players are, by most accounts, equally as happy with the FRC rules as their intercounty colleagues and that enthusiasm can help them to bed in this club season.
One issue that is coming under strain is the growing disparity between football and hurling rules. Were the four-point goal, which was again trialled recently after being dropped at the start of the year, to re-emerge it would drive in the wedge between the games that little bit deeper.
This is not altogether new. After all, in the late Joe Lennon’s exhaustive 2000 study, Towards a Philosophy for Legislation in Gaelic games, he states: “Since these games are completely different in form, it is not surprising that the first sets of rules were also quite different...”
The hurling field of play (200 yards x 150) was more than three times the size of a football pitch (120 x 80) and the goals considerably larger (20 x 10 compared with 15 x 8) and playing time was 80 minutes, compared to an hour.
Back on planet 21st century, the problem is practical. As Donal Smyth, Croke Park’s manager of match officials put it, “we have 40 per cent of our referees that do dual hurling and football, so one game going away from the other can be a big problem”.
Nonetheless, should the optimal evolution of either game be held back simply to bolster uniformity?
