All-Ireland Camogie Final: Referee walks the line of 'let it flow' lobby

Irish Daily Mirror

4 days ago

The pressure applied by the 'let it flow' lobby can have grave consequences for players as last weekend's All-Ireland Camogie Final showed.
It is, admittedly, a big lobby, but the problem is that everyone has a different view as to where they feel the line should be drawn.
And in the end, only one person can decide that in any given game.
It's a delicate and near impossible task for referees when it comes to the biggest games with the most spotlight on them and everyone having a different opinion on where the line is.
They're left to walk the tightrope. Let too much go and players' frustrations often grow, which can lead to flashpoints, as we saw with Hannah Looney's red card last Sunday. Whistle every free and they'll be widely hammered for ruining the game.
Last Sunday's Galway/Cork All-Ireland Final was a seriously intense battle with plenty of needle.
There were late hits and bits of verbals here and there. Players were constantly hunting in packs to put opponents under severe pressure, making the contact area difficult to officiate on.
On the Sunday Game, Waterford camogie player Niamh Rockett explained the dilemma of the referee and the game very well:
'No-one wants to be looking at a game that's going into a free-taking competition,' said Rockett.
'A spread of scorers for Cork and a spread of scorers for Galway. It wasn't just relying on Amy O'Connor and Saoirse McCarthy from Cork and Carrie Dolan to shoot the lights out.
'There were great scores from play. There were penalties. It had all the drama with it and I suppose the referee, they can only see the game and make a decision in a split second.
'Although Ger Manley might feel aggrieved by it, I do feel it balanced out in the very end of it.'
Cork manager Manley was not a happy man when he faced the media afterwards.
Manley was particularly incensed by Looney's red card, a push in the back on his goalie Amy Lee and a late decision he felt went against Cork in their bid for a three-in-a-row.
There were a number of blatant pushes in the back that were allowed to go, including the one on the Cork goalie.
That resulted in a Galway goal chance, which ended up as a point in a game which Cork lost by a point. It should have been a free out.
In the lead up to Looney's red card, a Cork player was pushed in the back. It should have been a Cork free.
Looney was also dunted in the back before the red card, but her reaction gave the referee a decision to make and it's something she how has to deal with.
Had the original push in the back been given as a free, it's very likely there would have been no red card incident and the referee wouldn't have found himself in the position of having to make such a big decision on the biggest day of them all.
Surely a far better outcome for all concerned, but one of hundreds of decision the referee has to make under immense pressure and scrutiny.
In the last 15 minutes a number of pull downs and late challenges, mostly by Cork, went unpunished. They could easily have been yellow cards, but some weren't given as frees.
The final stages were full of drama but it felt like things had gotten slightly out of control as the stakes continued to rise.
Refereeing in such an environment is incredibly difficult and over the years we've seen a tendency by some referees to let more go in tight games towards the end with every free potentially decisive. Maybe it's natural and shows they're human.
With the amount of contact throughout the game, if Wexford referee Heffernan had been a stickler and started blowing for every little infringement, the game would have degenerated into the type of free-ridden affair Rockett says no-one wants to see.
One of the problems particular to camogie and hurling is the 30 hurls/hurleys means extra contact and that closing down players one on one or in packs is easier than football, and has a higher payout, so it happens more often.
On top of this, when the stakes are at their highest and a game is tight, refereeing really comes under the microscope.
Managers, if they chose to go down the road of pointing fingers, will naturally give it to a match official ahead of their own players.
The panel on RTE's Sunday Game felt that the refereeing decisions balanced themselves out by the end of the game and on the live programme Wexford legend Ursula Jacob said the Looney incident was a red card.
There is a tendency in TV sports punditry these days to only ask one pundit's opinion on a major flashpoint and move on quickly rather than dwell on it.
Or for the pundits to all agree with each other, perhaps to avoid an apparent pile-on, on an individual.
Often, the first opinion given on TV in the immediate aftermath of an incident is the one that sticks in the public's mind and becomes the accepted version of events - even though it's just one person's opinion.
You could easily say the Looney incident was more a case of lashing out and was a yellow card, and that she appeared to miss her opponent.
But, by the letter of the law it could also be deemed an attempted strike and a red card. Good luck to the referee with that one?
How many times have we seen all sorts of stuff let go on a GAA pitch - and with tempers flaring an incident happens. Then a player takes the bait, retaliates and is red carded.
This is often the outcome when you 'let it flow.'
Also speaking on the Sunday Game, former Limerick camogie player Aoife Sheehan said: 'There were funny decisions on both sides. Ger Manley I know was a bit incensed afterwards.
'He was saying it but on the balance I think a lot of them (decisions) just evened out each other.
'That's the way we've been calling for camogie to be refereed for a long time. Look, let it go, let it flow, let the physicality get into it and I think both teams did get into it.'
It's what the vast majority of players and fans seem to want, but there will, invariably, be more casualties of 'let it flow' - injured, concussed and red carded players. Who would be a referee?