Deely’s UK-based ref plan is a bit of a stretch

AS FAR as London football boss Ciarán Deely is concerned it would appear when you take an inch, you might as well chase the full mile. With London at home for all seven Allianz League games this spring it has already worked to the Exiles’ advantage as they chalked up their first win last weekend against Wicklow and they have every chance of doubling their points tally today against Limerick.

Buoyed by that, Deely called this week for Croke Park to show some respect to British GAA by appointing UK-based referees to officiate at London’s Allianz League games.

Currently, Croke Park flies in referees from Ireland to take charge of games with the other British counties supplying linesmen and umpires for games.

Deely (above) believes that Britain should be shown the ‘respect’ of also being allowed to provide the referee, except there is a slight problem — one he acknowledges — there is no UKbased referee on the national list.

But even if there was, it would be a stretch to get one referee qualified to meet the required criteria to officiate at inter-county level and

that would mean that the same referee would take charge of every London home fixture. However, the GAA did not baulk in appointing Joe McQuillan to referee the 2011 All-Ireland final — the Cavan official’s fourth time in that summer’s taking charge of a game featuring Dublin — and sure that turned out just swimmingly. Didn’t it?