MELLOW YELLOW

Hurling is in a black mood over cynical fouling but there is a simple solution to a complex problem here...

FOR those of us condemned to endure watching Manchester United in their attempts to play football this season, commentator Martin Tyler managed to make the experience all the more excruciating last week. With the brain already engaged in brutal warfare with the heart (the latter delighted that Anthony Martial opened the scoring, the former unimpressed because it is likely to extend the player’s future at Old Trafford), Tyler could not resist in imparting the kind of wisdom for which white noise was invented to mute.

After Chelsea had a goal ruled out for offside, he broke into a monologue on how the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) was thieving goals and joy from the game.

His co-commentator Gary Neville offered up reason by pointing out that the offside rule – one that has been around since 1863 and therefore long enough for Tyler to have become accustomed to it – is exactly like pregnancy, either you are or you aren’t.

It was a rebuttal that failed to penetrate the forensic wonder that is Tyler’s brain.

‘But the reason we love the game is because of goals,’ was his killer closing line, and Neville left it at that, realising that such infantile reasoning would perhaps be better showcased in the debating society at the local creche rather than on live television. It was, perhaps, with Tyler in mind that Albert Einstein, a man who knew a thing or two about the importance of making definitive judgments, once observed: ‘everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler’.

Then again, he may also have had GAA’s Annual Congress in mind.

It convenes again next weekend and the hope is that it stays true to the belief that there is much to be gained for keeping things simple.

The likelihood is that Congress will reach the correct decision, but for the wrong reason, in rejecting the introduction of the black card/ sin-bin in hurling.

It is likely to be swayed by the misguided view that hurling is too precious, what with its UNESCO protected cultural activity status, to be interfered with via the importation of a law introduced to tackle Gaelic football’s cynical ways.

Mind you, there are times when it can be hard to tell one from the other, when the codes find their true voice. ‘I don’t think there’s that much cynical fouling in hurling,’ declared Kilkenny’s Joey Holden in recent weeks.

‘What does a forward expect? I know they want to get through on goal but we’re defenders, we have to stop them.’

Had he uttered those words in a Tyrone football jersey, there would have been demands for contrition but in hurling such a view is in keeping with the code of the warrior, where all fouls are manly ones.

The issue, unless you have got skin in the game as a corner-back, is not whether hurling has been infected by cynicism, but whether the black card is the weapon best placed to address it. It clearly is not. While it has had an impact in Gaelic football – not least in reducing the frequency of third-man tackles – it has been dogged by ambiguity (as to what qualifies as a black or yellow card) and, more importantly, its failure to sanction all acts of cynical foul play in an even-handed manner.

Don’t take our word for it, take David Gough’s.

‘There’s any number of cynical fouls occurring at the moment but we can’t give a black card because the language of the rules is so prescriptive,’ Gaelic football’s top referee warned last month.

And if delegates need proof of just how ineffective the introduction of the black card would be, they only need to imagine how it would have been retrospectively applied in the foul-fest that was the first half of last year’s All-Ireland final.

In a contest blighted by deliberate and cynical fouling – Tipperary the main culprits – which denied Kilkenny two clear goal chances and a possibility of a third, two black cards could have been shown, but none would have applied to those key fouls.

John McGrath’s deliberate pullback on Walter Walsh in the second minute, which slowed down the Kilkenny attack and allowed the Tipperary forward to get a goal-saving hook in on Colin Fennelly would not have fallen under the remit of

‘IT IS DOGGED BY AMBIGUITY AS TO WHAT QUALIFIES AS A YELLOW OR BLACK CARD’

what is considered to be a black card offence.

Or for that matter Barry Heffernan’s pull back – but not pull down – on TJ Reid, when the former’s turnover had left Kilkenny in a good position to score a goal, would not have resulted in a sin-bin sanction either.

Or for that matter, would Pádraig Maher’s holding of Walsh’s hurley – as the Kilkenny forward sought to get into a position where a shot at goal would have been more than a possibility – have been worthy of a black card?

Instead the black card, which limits itself to the specific fouls, of pull-downs, trips and body collides, would have been shown twice, correctly for Seamus Kennedy’s pull down on John Donnelly – an infraction committed 50 metres from the Kilkenny goal.

And, underlining its ineffectiveness, one would almost certainly have been shown to Kilkenny’s Cillian Buckley who, in an attempted hook that was so badly timed he ended up tripping Michael Breen, was still in his own half of the field.

Buckley’s defence that it was not a deliberate action might have got him off, but the hard evidence is that the technical execution of the proscribed foul always seems to trump intent.

And that is certainly how it is applied in the disciplinary process, where defence has to be based on whether the technical offence was committed, with no evidence – such as the score of the game, timing of the offence or area of the field where the infraction took place, all of which would provide motivational context – of lack of intent allowed.

There is little logic in applying a rule that can see a player sin-binned for a foul, where there is less evidence of cynicism at play, merely because it fits the description of what a cynical foul might be, but which cannot be applied when there is far greater evidence (as well as reward) for a foul rooted in cynicism but presenting in a way that is not written in the rules.

The inevitable defeat of the motion next week may ensure hurling saves itself from the black card, but it still does not answer how it can save itself from a cynical fouling culture.

The answer is to give referees more discretion, which can be best addressed by getting rid of the black card, applying the 10-minute sin-bin to all yellow card offences.

In an instant, it would end the ambiguity as to what qualifies as a black/yellow card offence, but then insisting in a hierarchy of cautionable fouls (outside of straight red cards) has merely complicated matters.

After all, should a dangerous and reckless foul, like the one committed on Richie Hogan by Cathal Barrett – which would provide context for what followed in last year’s final – not merit the sanction of a sin-bin?

And, if all serious foul play is treated the same, the GAA might just find that keeping it simple works best.