Refereeing

The day Marc O'Se was sent off in the wrong

June 8th, 2008
by Weeshie Fogarty

 "On Sunday Inchicore Emmets went to the picturesque village of Clondalkin to play the local gaels Round Towers, in a game of Gaelic football. At half past one Mr. Wolfe Abbot threw in the ball to commence the match. Round Towers have improved tremendously and play an excellent game of football was it not for their persistent habit of questioning every decision made by the referee even though on this occasion he was appointed by them". Sounds familiar? Yes indeed it must be most followers except that this is an extract from "An Spoirt" dated 16th September 1887 which was posted to me some time ago from a friend in Dublin following remarks made in this column in relation to the standard of referring. In that same piece I remarked that without doubt we would have good cause to return again and again in the very near future to the question of referees in Gaelic football. Things have changed very little over the years. As a matter of fact I believe things have even got worst as every so called expert on TV and radio and every journalist writing for the multitude of papers appear to know everything about the good and bad of referring. There is just one snag. I would bet my bottom dollar that 99.9% of those people never took up a whistle to handle even an under twelve game.

Uniformity of interpretation of the rules is what is needed to satisfy all the people all the time. However this is my opinion following nearly twenty years at the job is an impossibility and will never happen. Let me preface what I say straight away by adding that most men and women handling the thousand of games all over the country do a reasonably good job. Now I will go so far as to say that Gaelic football is the most difficult field game in the entire world to control properly. Just consider the vast amount of fouls a referee can blow for as two players fight for possession. The player in possession can commit a foul in many different ways and the player tackling him can do like wise. Add them all up and you might appreciate exactly what the man in the middle has to contend with as he makes that spilt second decision which might decide the outcome of a particular match. He dose not have the luxury of sitting in front of a TV screen in a cozy studio and viewing a particular incident over and over again before he makes a decision. Referee bashing in all provinces is in full vogue at the moment as the championship reaches the knock out stages. That is the way it is, has been, and always will be due to the impossibility of having overall uniformity of the vast myriad of rules in our game.

Having said all that it must also be stated that referees themselves can and do have off days and make decisions that in retrospect should have been different. I include myself in this. Any man that says he is always right in my opinion then he is never right. You're dammed if you do and dammed if you don't do. Too much use of the whistle or too little use of the whistle can spoil the enjoyment for players and spectators. The trick is and this is a very fine balancing act somewhere in between. Weather conditions, the size of the crowd, the rivalry of the competing teams, the approach of the players to the contest and the mind set in which the manager sends out his men and this is crucial, can all determine just how a referee performs. Now to add to the confusion and in my opinion has placed huge onus on the referee are the flashing of the little black book, the yellow cards and the red card. Every individual appears to have a different perception of when or not a card should be flashed. No two men think the same and all or different in their mind set and approach to the job. This is human nature.

Let's take a short look at the nationally debated sending off of Marc o Se in the Munster final. Every second person wants to discuss the rights and wrongs of the affair. Of course all this debate is one of the greatest aspects of the game and long my it live. This is the way I saw it. Sean o Brien the Cork half forward raced along the side line in persuit of the ball. Mark closed in on him eyes fixed firmly on the leather, O Se collided with the Cork man, down he went and the crowd in the stand went ballistic. To me looking down from high up on the commentary gantry there was no malice in the tackle and it was completely accidental. It was now the problem arose for the referee. Conditions were atrocious, he had previously sent of Nicholas Murphy of Cork, Kerry were on the rack as Cork were staging that magnificent come back and I don't think Derek Fahy had a perfect view of the tackle. What decision should he make? His mind was made up for him very quickly by the reaction of the crowd feet away from him in the packed stand.

The collision had looked bad from the referee's angle and I always found and this is crucial, whether we like it or not the incident which occurs in front of a packed stand and right on the side line always provokes the most hostile response of all from fans. And then it happened on the side close to where the Kerry and Cork mentors were situated. I am utterly convinced that if the collision occurred at the far side of the field in front of the open stand and the rain sodden spectators events which have unfolded in a completely different way. O Brien stayed down, mentors gathered around, the referee reacted to what was a highly volatile situation, human nature again came into play here and he immediately flashed the red card. Mark o Se one of the fairest, cleanest and outstanding defenders in the game was wrongly sent to the dressing room. If this decision is not rescinded it will bring many aspects of the game into disrepute. 

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