Referee has a duty to hurling and not to Brian Cody or the need for an ‘epic’ final
THERE is nothing that comes out of Brian Cody’s mouth which has not already been processed by a brain that doubles as a fridge.
He is hurling’s greatest and most successful manager, who has loomed large over our world for over a decade and a half, but there is not a press man out there who would claim they have the remotest notion of what buttons need to be pushed to make him sing.
Usually, he peers out at us from under his peaked cap after games and struggles to feign his boredom at the pitiful questions we throw at him.
Then, he proceeds to tell us that the misfortunates left in a heap by his charges offered up ‘savage’ resistance and half of the country on any given Sunday are capable of beating his great team.
He talks, we nod and that is how the dance goes.
Last week, in the post-match press conference, when he blew out his cheeks in response to Tipperary’s tactical madness, we almost went weak-kneed at the display of emotion because that was about as expressive as he has ever been in our company.
For just about every August for most of the last decade, we descend on Kilkenny f or the
Refs asked to interpret law, not apply it
annual All-Ireland final press night in the knowledge that the juiciest it will get depends entirely on how rare we order the fine steaks that are put before us in Langtons.
And, what do you know, this year we skipped the dance to ensure that a more deserving colleague had the feed and, in the process, missed an evening where Cody decided to indulge rather than numb us.
His response to a question by Shane McGrath from this parish on how the fall-out from the Tipperary game might impact on the refereeing of Sunday week’s final against Galway by Barry Kelly elicited a powerful response.
‘I think that there could be a stupid reaction now,’ claimed Cody.
‘There could be this crazy reaction now to a couple of instances from last Sunday which should have been dealt with last Sunday not in two weeks’ time.’
It is safe to assume Cody was not speaking off the top of his head, but from deep inside it.
He wanted to get that message out there for a number of reasons, not least because he has been consistent in his belief that the game’s natural physicality should not be tampered with and he also knows his team hurls best when the game is played to its natural, primal beat. HOWEVER, the very fact that how the final will be refereed is a legitimate topic says much about how the game itself is struggling to live within the rules that govern it. After all, is there any other sport out there which asks referees to interpret the rule-book rather than apply it?
But that is what we are asking of Kelly. He has to take charge of the biggest game of the year, with the rule-book in one hand and a blank sheet on the other — the latter demanding that he must referee the game by judging the mood in which it is played.
In other words, he can apply the rules but must also apply ‘ common sense’ to ensure he does not apply them all the time, or else he will be found guilty of sabotaging the biggest game of the year as a spectacle.
Oh, and while he is half applying the rules, we also need him to do so consistently. It is not just Cody in his ear ... we all are.
As the Kilkenny manager pointed out, the last three All-Ireland finals have been hailed as epics, mainly, it must be said, because the referees charged with controlling them bought into the ‘mood’.
Hurling now entrusted to police itself
The truth is that, time and again in those games, borders have been crossed without censure (Jackie Tyrell’s bone- shuddering hit on Seamus Callanan in the opening minutes of the 2009 final an obvious example), but once we had the visual feast we demanded, we were in no mood for complaining.
Except now we want it all the time and the GAA has appeared to facilitate our taste. While football permanently navel-gazes over the many issues it faces, including a rampant fouling culture, hurling is packaged as a game free of cynicism and brimful of testosterone.
Free counts have fallen through the floor and referees who ‘let the game flow’ are celebrated and rewarded by getting big games.
In the absence of the heavy hand of the law, hurling is entrusted to almost police itself. AND, by the way, Kilkenny have not always profited from this. In last year’s semi-final against Waterford, a game of hard-hitting intensity, Cody’s team received just half a dozen frees
Cody was also right to suggest that his team were not the aggressors in the semi-final against Tipperary, in a game where the Munster champions nakedly invited Kilkenny outside the door.
It would be wrong if his team were, as he put it, ‘tarred’ because of that.
The Kilkenny manager was quite right to suggest that Sunday week’s final should not be officiated to right the wrongs of another game.
But the attitude fostered, in particular, by Tipperary was rooted in the belief that the tolerance levels to excessive physicality have been raised so high that it no longer conforms with ‘normal’ standards.
Cody suggested that it would get ‘messy’ if referees felt obliged to hand out yellow cards for what he referred to as the ‘shenanigans’ (in any other sport they would be termed ‘ all- in brawls’) which soured the start of last week’s game, and which were the mood-setter for what was to follow.
For that, perhaps, Cody’s midfielder Michael Rice paid the price of missing out on an All-Ireland final, because when teams end up testing how far they can bend the laws of the game, something, somewhere has to break.
The only advice that Barry Kelly needs to get ahead of Sunday week’s final, is to allow himself be guided by the rules of the game he is entrusted with policing, rather than feeling duty bound to deliver us a spectacle at any price.