Refs urged to give frees rather than advantage, claims Barrett

REFEREES have been instructed to gives frees instead of advantage, especially in hurling, because of the greater likelihood that a score will accrue from a free and punish the foul, the head of the National Referees Committee Willie Barrett has outlined.

Barrett (below) was responding to criticism of hurling referees over the weekend with appeals from managers for light-touch regulation in a week when GAA’s Congress considers a black card for hurling.

The Gaelic Players Association (GPA) published the findings of a survey they conducted among 2019 championship hurling squads between February 6 and February 20.

In total 1,116 intercounty hurlers from 35 squads took part in the research, close to a 10 per cent response rate with 89 per cent of respondents against.

The Standing Committee on Playing Rules, who are proposing the black card for hurling, are also seeking changes to the advantage rules that referees applied already last weekend.

Johnny Murphy was reported to have awarded more than 50 frees during Saturday night’s Allianz League match between Dublin and Wexford in Croke Park, prompting Wexford manager Davy Fitzgerald to issue a ‘hands off the game’ plea.

But Barrett says policing the handpass and overlooking the advantage, unless it’s really clear, may be behind the spike in frees.

“We felt that the advantage wasn’t working out; maybe that is the reason for the extra frees,” said Barrett.

“The other point I’d make is that the referee has to feel his way into the game to find out how things are going.

“Based on that he will make a very quick observation as to whether he needs to blow the whistle and penalise every foul or whether he can play advantage as much as possible.

“In the Croke Park game, the referee was challenged and blew the whistle and awarded the frees.

“I don’t think you can look at the match and say none of them were frees. By the letter of the law they were frees.

“The other side of the coin is, do they ignore frees? There were a few handpasses blown on Saturday night. He was correct in the application of that rule. He was setting down a marker, he blew three early in the game and after that the players, I noticed, responded by executing the handpass properly.”

Barrett said the change in the application of advantage stemmed from a review of the first three rounds of the league that referees conducted last week.

“We looked at situations that happened and need to penalise more and there were situations where the advantage was played and the five seconds elapsed and a score was lost.

“On the other side, many would say every team has a free-taker who would put a free over the bar. Obviously there is a fine balance between the advantage and giving the free.”