The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
It’ll never be black and white but we must decide if we want rules or not
IT’S reaching farcical levels now, but the problem is that no one is laughing.
On one level it’s a joke, but the tragedy now is that the joke’s on us. All of us: anyone who plays Gaelic football, coaches Gaelic football, administers Gaelic football, officiates Gaelic football, watches Gaelic football.
Of course we are talking about the black card, but we’re also talking about the rules of the game at large, and how those rules are applied and how the game itself is governed.
Last Saturday’s All-Ireland Final replay was as good as match as one could hope for the occasion. It had it all, right down to the Shakespearian-like tragedy that seems to cling to Mayo whenever they grace this stage.
It also had the by now usual dosage of controversy surrounding some refereeing decisions, in particular a couple of black cards issued and another couple that weren’t but might have been.
It’s an old chestnut by now, but one that continues to pervade the game right to the very top and one the authorities have to tackle right now, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Eugene McGee - the chairman of the Football Review Committee that pushed the black card successfully through Congress three years ago - has said a review of the black card is now necessary, although he remains a bullish advocate for its retention.
Let’s remind ourselves of the first three Category II Infractions (for cynical behaviour) that are governed by the black card:
5.10: To deliberately pull down an opponent.
5.11: To deliberately trip an opponent with hand(s), arm, leg or foot.
5.12: To deliberately collide with an opponent after he has played the ball away or for the purpose of taking him out of the movement of play.
They’re pretty straightforward, aren’t they. Pull down, trip or collide with an opponent and you’re off. So what’s the problem and where’s the confusion?
The confusion lies in the word ‘deliberately’ because straight away that makes it a subjective call for a referee. Now he has to get inside the mind of a footballer and decide whether the player deliberately and with intent meant to foul his opponent or whether it was some sort of accidental foul.
In real time, in the heat of a match, it’s a big ask of the official to make a judgement call on a player’s intent or otherwise when a collision such as that between Lee Keegan and Diarmuid Connolly last Saturday that resulted in the former being issued a black card by Maurice Deegan.
The problem with the black card is a whole different matter.
Tacitly most people accept that there must be rules, even for Gaelic football, which is becoming almost ungovernable, particularly so at the top end of the inter-county game. But at a real level, the truth is nobody is willing to play by the rules.
Never mind the speed at which the top players play the game, and the physicality and athleticism of the protagonists, there is fast becoming a complete unwillingness to accept any sort of regard for the rules of the game that govern discipline and aggressive fouling.
Every call by a referee is vehemently challenged by players, sideline mentors and spectators. Look back on any of the major Championship matches this summer and see how the referee is set upon by players from both teams whenever he blows his whistle for a free that isn’t a technical foul (and ever then many of those calls are challenged too.) Until such time as players, firstly, are willing to accept that, yes, they have actually committed a foul the slow death of the game will continue.
It has already permeated down to minor and juvenile level, and once the under-10s and under-12s catch on to ref bashing - as they surely will because what kid doesn’t want to emulate his or her hero - then the gig is up.
But back to the black card. Is it working? To a degree, insofar as it probably has cut out some of the blatant cynical fouls where once a player could ‘take one for the team’ at the price of a yellow card, but that will continue to happen anyway where a player deems it worth it to take a player out in the closing minutes of a game to ensure victory and walk on a black card.
But what of the trip or body check earlier in the game on a player not in a scoring position, which is cynical and deliberate but which doesn’t materially affect the score at that stage.
Would advancing the ball to a scorable range or ‘sin-binning’ the offending player for 5, 8 or 10 minutes be a better fit of a punishment?
Either way it will still come down to a judgement call by a referee on what is and isn’t a foul. Same as it always has been.
And it comes down to a willingness or not to accept that referees, same as footballers, will get some things right and some things wrong.
Gaelic football is at best an organic, fluid and, at times, messy game, governed by playing rules but played in a free-wheeling spirit within that framework.
Beyond that and it threatens to spill into anarchy. It really is that black and white.