WHEN Mayo and Dublin met in the league last March it delivered a story that never got old in the telling as the year went on. Dublin struggled when turned over and run at by strong, physical opposition. Mayo lost their way with a big win in sight and turned a silk purse into a sow’s ear of a draw. After the game James Horan swung a few punches and hit a few targets.
“We thought the referee’s display was pretty poor, to put it mildly,” he said. “Unbelievable at times. I thought there was a lot of frees we could have got that we didn’t get. Some of them were borderline black cards.” Mayo headed away, hoping Cormac Reilly wouldn’t be there again when it came to making the biggest decisions of the year.
But he was. Although the constant drip of questionable calls from the beginning of the match made it hard to pinpoint exactly when the game slipped from his grasp, seeing Donnchadh Walsh flung over the barrier in front of the stand during a dust-up in the first half lit up the sky like a flare. Kevin McStay’s live television autopsy of Reilly’s performance on Sunday night was grisly enough to warrant its own hour-long show on Channel Four, and the week since hasn’t been kind to Reilly, but he shouldn’t stand alone in this discussion.
Just like a few classics at the end of a dull football championship shouldn’t hide the reality that the competition’s structure is preventing football benefiting from more games like the All-Ireland semi-finals, Reilly can’t be sacrificed to the GAA public’s appetite to beat up on the referee. Last weekend’s performance was the latest symptom of a deeper issue.
The black card has provided a new angle on an old problem. People ask sometimes how the black card has bedded in. It’s impossible to tell when so many referees still flash yellows instead of black cards, or fail to flash any card at all. GAA referees have always taken a flexible approach to the rulebook depending on the game and its circumstances. It’s an institutionalised state of mind influenced by everything from the GAA’s traditionally flimsy disciplinary systems to the reality that referees at all levels live alongside the players and supporters they deal with. For referees to impose the rules for the benefit of the game they must act regardless of the impact, but also with the support of the GAA’s committees behind them. That’s still an issue, as Lee Keegan’s rescinded red card from the drawn game proved. If the GAA at every single level doesn’t back the best referees when they correctly make the biggest calls, that encourages cop-outs.
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Last Saturday night was gaelic football in potted bliss: a highly skilled game spiced with mighty hits and moments of rapier brilliance all executed at supercharged speed.
Most of all we saw a classic game that showed us what football could be, but also why it still isn’t.