EASIER IF HE JUST TAKES SUNDAY OFF
BY MICHAEL SCULLY
TRIAL by TV doesn’t affect David Gough – because he consciously avoids The Sunday Game.
Joe Canning was among those upset that three hurlers – two from Clare, one from Limerick – were singled out by Sunday Game panellists on the night of the Munster final for indiscretions missed by referee John Keenan. All three subsequently faced disciplinary hearings and were banned, although the suspensions were later overturned.
Gough has a simple answer.
“I personally don’t watch the Sunday Game so it wouldn’t come on my radar,” he said. “I assume if a referee sits down (and watches) – and I’m not sure if it’s their performance that’s highlighted or if it’s incidents in the game highlighted – I’m sure there’s some frustration.
“But if you don’t watch it then it’s no frustration.
“I watch the game back the day after with the volume off and do my own assessment.
“What pundits and players and panellists on RTE think, personally it’s very irrelevant because they’re not coming from the same knowledge of the rules as I am.
“So their opinion doesn’t really count, in my book.
“I don’t know if I’m well versed enough to know what goes on in the subconscious but you have to think somehow, it would creep in at the back of your mind.
“I’d hope it wouldn’t eat in. Could it possibly? Yes, of course it could.”
Keenan was praised for letting that Munster final flow to a large extent but Gough remarked: “We’re all tasked with controlling the game in accordance with the playing rules and I’m sure that’s what he set out to do on the day and that’s what I’ll set out to do on Sunday.
“And I don’t see it as the task of the referee to let the game flow.
“The game flows because the players play inside the rules.
“If there’s a free, the free has been caused by a foul, the foul has been caused by the player, so you have to point it back to the player all the time and stop looking at the referee.”