Hurling man won’t stand for the sin-bin

YOU could practically set your clock by it. As soon as a hurler gets hauled to the ground or tripped or blocked or body checked or any of the other things covered by the black card in Gaelic football, somebody will pop up to comment darkly and acidly that there’s no such thing as cynicism in hurling.

At this stage we’re not quite sure whether or not the phrase was ever uttered non-ironically, now though we all know what it really means. The very fact that we’re unsure as to the provenance of the phrase tells us this debate has been going on quite some time.

The idea that hurling is purer than football is well established – and there’s some merit to it, the free count in a hurling game is generally well below that of a football match – but the idea that hurlers don’t want to win as much as their football brethren and aren’t willing to employ the dark arts on occasion is naive at best.

More than naive there’s a certain wilful refusal amongst some hurling people to admit there might be anything wrong with their game. It’s admirable in a way and sometimes you wish football folk would be as proactive in talking up their game, but it can lead to a sclerosis in thought too.

Limerick boss John Kiely’s reaction to the standing rules committee’s trial balloon on the possible introduction of a sin-bin for hurling is probably indicative of how difficult an ask it will be to get this through.

“Leave hurling alone, please,” he impleaded. “Nobody is giving out about the game, really, apart from one or two and they’re going to be giving out anyway.”

Far be it for us to contradict a man who’s given his life to hurling and treated us all to some of the most thrilling hurling we’ve seen in the last decade if not of all time, but we do think hurling has some rough edges that might need to be sanded down. If not by a sin-bin, then by something else. At the very least the black card and the sin-bin should be trialled in hurling for a National League campaign. Burying your head in the sand and just saying no won’t cut it for much longer.