You need to be sure when making a decision, if you’re not then you shouldn’t be awarding a free or a card or foul etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3Aqyr433a4
That’s pretty much it but what he saw would have appeared very comprehensive, I doubt any of his team would have had much better of a view.
Referees should ref with their eyes, not their imagination.
but if there is any element of doubt, there are 7 other officials he can speak to. The play was already stopped, so its not as if it would waste any more time. Be sure of it, dont be going on preceptions. Duffy fucked it right up by not being 100% sure and using the officials around him.
As @TreatyStones says above, I too have long advocated a Monday morning disciplinary meeting, similar in nature to the AFL set up. Have the review panel, go through the incidents, issue findings that afternoon, get appeals by the following day, and have it wrapped up by Wednesday. No long withdrawn bullshit. I’d also do it like theirs too, if you appeal and get off, fine, but if you appeal and lose, you get more for time wasting.
This incident is a total over reaction, but maybe it will be the catalyst for some disciplinary board change.
I concur. Rugby league has a fine system for dealing with this - you put the incident on report and it’s reviewed later.
I think even if he sae contact it would be impossible to see the contact without seeing the nature of the contact. It’s too big a leap to make based on anything the referee could have seen. I accept Mick’s point about perception but there needs to be something to perceive in the first place. A red card is important, you can’t jump to conclusions if you know you haven’t seen it properly. Which he couldn’t have. He guessed and he’s been exposed for guessing.
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RTE running the 8 week ban story now, fantastic. Part one is in the bag, that embarrassing cunt McCann has been banned and made an example of, fair play to all involved in reaching the correct decision.
Part two must be the appointment of the proper ref for the semi final. He must be well briefed about Tyrone’s filth and be ready to dish out the red and black cards if these cowardly thugs try and ruin the game like they ruined the quarter final.
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A very good piece here from Quirke, very reasoned and fair throughout.
Dark arts endangering Tyrone’s legacy
Wednesday, August 12, 2015By Mike Quirke
“A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever”
— Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton.
I love when I hear this talk about Kerry being the most cynical team in the country. If you were still pedalling that notion this week, you obviously weren’t watching Tyrone and Monaghan last Saturday.
Now, we know GAA supporters of all counties are a blinkered bunch. For the most part, their eyes only allow them to see they want to see, completely blind to anything but their flawless county colours.
They operate under strict guidelines to vehemently protect their own players at all costs, even if all reasonable thought would suggest doing otherwise. In that world, your own players are never at fault. Not once.
It must be the referee, the weather, the opposition, the media… there’s always someone else to blame, and they’re all against you. It’s a siege. Only they themselves are privately allowed to criticise their own, but ‘outsiders’ are not extended the same privilege.
Once the hysteria around Tiernan McCann’s hair ruffle died down, all I’ve heard since, is how the Red Hand are victims of an anti-Tyrone, southern-biased media campaign who are doing their very best to vilify and burn them at a figurative stake outside Croke Park. What absolute nonsense.
I fully appreciate this will probably be seen as an inflammatory piece given the context of a Kerry man writing about our semi-final opponents in a fortnight’s time.
I’m sure I may be accused of trying to influence a prospective referee, and bring even more heat and scrutiny down on top of Tyrone.
Nonetheless, a line must be drawn, and what we saw in Croke Park from Tyrone last weekend was to any fair-minded GAA supporter; unequivocally damaging to the integrity of our game.
Back in 2008, Kerry played Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final and Aidan O’Mahony got involved in a heated altercation with Donncha O’Connor. The Cork man slapped O’Mahony with an open hand across the face with minimal force and sent the hardy Rathmore defender back-pedalling to the turf, holding his jaw as though he had been caught with a sharp right hook from Mike Tyson in his prime.
It was embarrassing. Cringeworthy.
O’Mahony quickly realised what he did and jumped up to his feet, but it was too late. The damage was done. He had deceived the referee in the few seconds it took him to fall to the canvas, and in doing so, he had damaged the integrity of the jersey he was wearing and the game as a whole.
He was slaughtered afterwards countrywide. But the Kerry supporters circled the wagons around their man, much like the protection the Tyrone people are affording young McCann this week.
Aidan didn’t need a reminding of his responsibilities the following week, but he got it anyway, from within our group and from outside it.
It was an isolated incident from O’Mahony, sandwiched in between a career of honesty. But it did happen, and it is always there lurking below the All Stars and All-Irelands, something he can never fully eradicate from his CV. This week, that clip of him has reappeared on various social media platforms as a sort of riposte from Tyrone supporters, as if one has anything to do with the other.
Michael Shields of Cork was another to take a Ronaldo-esque type dive in this year’s Munster final replay clutching his face after minimal contact in the shoulder from Paul Geaney. It’ll stay with him too.
Tiernan McCann is not the first GAA player to throw himself to the floor in a ridiculous fashion and he won’t be the last either. These decisions are made in split seconds, sometimes your brain fools you into thinking this would be a good idea. It obviously wasn’t.
But his act on Saturday last was more than a just poor snap decision, it seemed to typify a theme of dishonesty and an apparent lack of sportsmanship being displayed by this latest edition of Mickey Harte’s Tyrone all evening long.
The real shame for McCann is, nobody is talking about how exceptional his performance was for the 75 minutes before his black card. He has somehow become a victim within his own county, but a symbol of Tyrones cheating to the rest of the country. But he’s a hell of a footballer to anybody who knows their business.
Just who exactly is going to remind him of his responsibilities to his jersey this week? Who is going to talk to him about his over simulation of fouls? His captain perhaps? Or does anybody up there really care?
Sean Cavanagh is the leader of the Tyrone squad and is a footballer that would grace any team in the land, but his behaviour as alpha male of the group has made it acceptable for his team-mates to act in an unsportsmanlike way. He too went to ground softly after getting brushed by Conor McManus on his way to take a free which was moved forward because Cavanagh himself wouldn’t retreat the requisite distance. He along with substitute Justin McMahon and a few others were the antagonists of the piece all day. It was unpleasant to see one of the greatest players to ever play the game lead his team to victory in such a classless manner.
But make no mistake, Cavanagh was sinned against also; Paul Finlay caught him flush in the face with a nasty closed fist from behind that should have yielded a straight red card for the normally placid Monaghan stalwart. But Cavanagh’s behaviour, and that of his team-mates will always frustrate the opposition into seeking out their own retribution. That’s the whole purpose of their cynicism in the first place. To get a reaction; to frustrate you to the point of throwing a punch and losing your cool.
It’s wasn’t so much McCann’s dive; nor Tyrone’s generally inability to stay on their feet following any type of a challenge, or even their repeated feigning of injury to bring about a more severe refereeing penalty that really irritated… no, it was their constant, almost systematic sledging of Monaghan players that really left a sour taste in the mouth. Of course, this is not the first time we’ve seen this from Tyrone. Not even this year. We know the allegations about their minor team’s sledging, and we saw and heard about some similar verbal exploits by their successful under 21 team this year. They learn what they see.
But it’s beginning to taint them. And it’s beginning to taint Mickey Harte as manager of their senior team. Why would a man so sharp and successful, allow this type of behaviour to breed and fester within his squad. What good could ever come of it. He along with his players must take his portion of responsibility for the perception they have created for themselves and football within their county. His appraisal of the McCann incident on Monday was a long way south of damning, while acknowledging that if Tiernan “had the chance again, he probably would have responded differently”.
To be honest, I just can’t understand their behaviour. For such a talented bunch of young vibrant footballers, it makes no sense to me. The game was won last weekend and they were still getting involved in nonsense in the final 10 minutes that simply detracted from their fantastic performance.
Maybe that was the point… are they that clever? People aren’t talking about how good a football team they are now, we are dissecting all the extra-curricular events.
Whatever the reasoning behind their actions, whether shrewd or not, they are in the last four of the All-Ireland on merit. They were far superior to Monaghan and had no need to engage in any type of negativity.
But if winning Sam Maguire is literally all that matters, you can quickly lose sight of all perspective of acceptable sportsmanship and what legacy you want to leave behind for the next generation of footballers to follow in your footsteps.
Who is to say that the other officials had a clear view of it either? The Tyrone player could well have been between the view of the umpires/linesman and Hughes and it could well have looked like a strike from their vantage point.
I don’t disagree that it is a bad call but people are missing the context of the decision and how the ref came to it. He can only go off his interpretation of the incident, same as any other time/incident during the game. It is easy to say that he shouldn’t have sent Hughes off, but for arguements sake if Hughes had struck the Tyrone player and he did nothing because he wasn’t 100% certain then people would be slating him for for not taking action. He like all refs can only call it as he sees it and base it on what he perceives to have happened and act accordingly
Would killing the black card and introducing a proper sin bin system solve any of the problem? I still don’t fully understand why the sin bin system was so universally unpopular. A black card doesn’t really penalise the top teams as they’ve enough strength on the bench.
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It was proving hellish to implement and causing confusion for the poor aul refs. That made them wonder how the fuck it’d work at club level.
What if they brought in a rule where black carded players can no longer be replaced in the final 15 minutes. They also need to change what is and what isn’t a cynical foul as well because according to the current rule there are only a few incidents that fall under that category.
Bear hugs and other methods of putting a fella to ground like pushes or running into them should be included. The one thing the black has tidied up has been the body checking of off the ball runners.
Why the last 15 mins only though? A cynical foul is still a cynical foul if its to help closing out a game or if its to prevent an early goal being scored.
but at least verify it, and then he would have some sort of comeback to say he did what he could to ensure he made the right decision. To just blindly fire ahead when he wasnt sure was a big mistake. He’s not alone in that, and along with the disciplinary measures I mentioned above, I think far greater power should be afforded to linesmen and umpires. Talks of a second referee shouldnt disappear, but we have 2 capable refs on the sideline too who should be given a whistle, or at least far more control than what they do right now. And umpires should be more than what they currently are. They should be replaced by apprentice referees, and not be cronies of the ref, and they should be able to call fouls and alert referees to more than what they already do.
Look at Tyrone, the media consider them to be the most cynical team in the game but any of their black cards have came in he manner of closing out games late on this year in 12 games over the course of the championship. I think the cynicism really only comes into play late on.
Refs need to be much more on the button with persistent fouling though, small things but the likes of the Mayo forwards have made an art form out of this.
The CCCC would be fucking nuts to ban McCann now, I don’t think they can do anything at this time. What they can do is at the end of the season review the championship and come up with punishments for diving, feigning injury or any of the shit that has been going by other teams that will be introduced at the start of the next season. This could be a review of the matches by a panel each monday and bans handed out. This way players, managers and who ever else will know where they stand and if they are caught then they know what sort of punishment they will face.
I also think managers should be hauled in before the CCCC to account for their teams behavior on the pitch and maybe handing out a few stadium bans to the Managers might soften their cough as well. Despite managers saying they dont condone that sort of behavior when asked it is pure bullshit of course they condone it. This goes for all County Managers and not just Saint Mickey of Tyrone even though he is the biggest cunt for it.
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Ban the cunt for 10 games.
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I hate constant changing of rules but as game becomes more basketball like maybe you look at a foul counter and once over that it is a 21 yard free. Pick an average number of fouls and then go with that.
Otherwise a ten minute sin bin for any fouls that are stopping a scoring chance
The worrying thing about that is giving incompetent referees a lot of discretion to interpret situations.
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Sin binning and black cards don’t work. The only thing that works is banning. If a players accumulates 2 black cards during the provincial or All Ireland championship then they get a 1 game ban. Same with yellow cards. Red cards are already dealt with.
to an extent I’d agree with that, but then the counter argument to that is that by playing more games, you are more likely to pick up more cards. So for example, you have Dublin who have played 4 games to get to the semi final, and then Tyrone who have played 6 games to get to the same stage. So just say you set the bar at 3 yellow cards, if Dublin and Tyrone make the AI final, you arent on the same amount of games, and therefore having an arbitrary number wouldnt really work. Add in potential replays to that, and it could be worse. It would work if teams had the same amount of games played, but they dont.
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