The ‘foul is fair’ farce has to end in hurling...
IT could pass as a work of comedic art, scripted by Pat Shortt and narrated by Effin’ Eddie, but the GAA will hope today that cynicism in hurling will not have the last laugh.
In recent times footage from a club game with rib-tickling audio has done the rounds online to illustrate how hurling has been infected by a cynical mindset.
It is one informed by the absolute belief that foul play is a transaction – in that when it confers an advantage you pay a modest price for doing it, rather than seeing it as an infraction of the spirit of the game.
And that 18 seconds of footage sums it all up. A high ball is gobbled up by the attacking player and the commentator, doing more than a passing impersonation of Eddie Moroney – the Tipperary man whose rough-and-ready commentary of a club match went viral in the 1990s – takes it up
‘The ball has gone in on top of Walter Walsh, Walter has it, take him down, take him down,’ he roars, but no instruction was needed, leading to protestations on the opposition sideline.
‘It’s a f***ing red card,’ someone points out
‘There’s no red card for takin’ him down, no red card for takin’ him down,’ repeats the Effin’ Eddie wannabe for effect.
‘He’s gone, he’s gone,’ counters the outraged voice.
‘No, he’s not. There is no professional foul,’ points out the chief narrator.
But the referee digs into his pocket, produces a red card to the disgust of the man in front of the imaginary microphone. ‘Ah, for f*** sake,’ he signs off. Behind the comedic bluster and questionable officiating, GAA Congress today will seek to address an undeniable truth that it has provided hurling with no defence against those who seek to profit from foul play.
Motion 20 on the agenda extends to football as well, but given that it has absorbed the principle that cynical play merits serious sanction with the introduction of the black card and, latterly, a sin-bin, all that is new if this is passed is a penalty kick can be awarded for any such foul inside the 20-metre line or semi-circular arc where the referee deems a clear goalscoring chance has been denied.
For hurling, though, it is a double whammy, in that such a foul seeks to invoke the spirit of football’s black card where players who commit a foul in those same circumstances will be issued with a yellow card that will carry a 10minute stint in the sin-bin.
Those who argue hurling rules should not be tampered with will see this as undue and unwarranted persistence from frustrated reformers after an effort to introduce the black card in hurling was hammered out the gate by 82% at last year’s Congress.
But those proposing the motion, drawn up by the Playing Rules Committee and backed by Central Council, will argue the real persistence is in how hurling has embraced cynicism, never more obviously than in last winter’s championship in which teams nakedly gained an advantage by committing serious foul play.
The examples are too numerous to mention, there were three pulldowns in the Wexford/Galway Leinster semi-final, Tipperary’s Séamus Callanan was rugbytackled to the ground by Galway’s Adrian Tuohey in the closing minutes of their qualifier clash. Danny Sutcliffe’s trip on Seán Purcell denied the Laois forward a goal chance in their defeat to Dublin are just some of the highlights.
Or go back to the foul fest of the 2019 All-Ireland final, when seven out of the first nine of Kilkenny’s attacks inside the 30-metre were thwarted by Tipperary fouls.
Pat Daly, the GAA’s director of games and a member of the playing rules committee, is around long enough to know that cynicism has not sprung up overnight, having been involved in a previous purge on a fouling culture that led to a brief sin-bin trial in both codes 16 years ago.
‘I started out on this in 2005 when the original sin-bin was introduced and there was so many players going there it was unbelievable but in last year’s championship we saw more of it and we saw it more often than we have ever seen before.
‘And it is now permeating down through the system, it is gone down through club level and it is heading for underage level.
‘This should be a question of ethics and values. We have a situation here where it pays to foul and there is indiscriminate fouling, indiscriminate pulling down and that is not good for the game, not good for the association, not good for anyone.’
The likelihood is that today’s motion will attract support and while that will be a step in the right direction, it will hardly tackle cynicism at its root.
After all, it is limited not to just three specific fouls, a trip, a pulldown and careless use of the hurler compared to the more expansive list of infractions which football’s black card covers, but also only in a specific area of the field and only when it has been deemed a goal chance.
And the latter is likely to create headaches for match officials who will have to make the subjective call that there was sufficient grounds to believe the fouled player would have been in a position that would led to his team scoring a goal. Those are the kind of calls that will invite scrutiny but as Daly argues, doing nothing today is simply not an option.
‘This should be a question of ethics and values’