At the outset here, it will be admitted that the length of suspension meted out to Gerry McEntee in the wake of his sending off in the 1988 All Ireland SFC Final Replay is unknown to me. However, what is known is that were far less means of appeal back then – if any at all – and these things never had a history of being kind to Meath anyway.
Further evidence, as if it were required, can be obtained from a study of the aftermath of the bit of dust up with our lads and Mayo in 1996. Meath had more players suspended – and for longer periods – even though it was blatantly obvious the pair of opposing corner forwards caused the rumpus. One of them executing a stiff-armed hit straight to the face of Darren Fay.
Mind you, Meath aren’t the only county who’ve got the rough end of the stick when it comes to the suspenders. Not taking appropriate action is often an even greater injustice than sanctions being dolled out which shouldn’t be. Exhibit A being Cork referee Michael Collins’s hideous decision to only show ‘Ricey’ McMenamin a yellow card after he flopped knees first down on Armagh’s John McEntee in the 2005 Ulster SFC Final replay. This, after all, was the same man who got Ollie Murphy a lengthy suspension just because he pointed out how atrocious the Cork whistler’s handling of Meath v. Donegal in 2002 was.
However, it’s a long road that has no turn. Last weekend, Armagh’s Rian O’Neill was adjudged to be the aggressor in an almost identical incident to the Tyrone-Armagh one referred to above. It didn’t look anywhere near as bad as it either, but, as a dear departed friend of mine used to say, “You can’t be half pregnant, you are either are or your not”! Paraphrasing that for relevance here, it either was a red card or it wasn’t.
For me, it was. There may have been nowhere near the same level of ferocity involved but the action was basically the same. That said, I can totally understand the frustration vented by both Kieran McGeeney and Oisin McConville in the aftermath of the incident. For one thing, Tyrone’s Mickey O’Neill was very, very lucky not to get at least a black card out of the incident which immediately preceded Rian’s red card.
Secondly, as per Oisin in his role as Wicklow manager, if as he stated in a BBC podcast earlier this week, managers were told at the beginning of the season matches would be officiated from a pro-player perspective, that commitment has not been delivered upon. And there’s evidence involving more than Rian O’Neill to corroborate that inclination. Holding players off the ball, blocking runs and jersey tugging is all back ‘in’ and going unchecked.
Now, it is only right and proper that players – or mentors as is becoming more widespread now, ridiculously – have the right to appeal, but fair play should not be at the expense of the system. What I mean by that is, while the right to appeal is of course a good and necessary thing, there’s almost a flippancy now about how refereeing decisions are overturned and how often it happens.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making myself out to be a freshly cleansed champion of the whistlers, if they make a balls of something I won’t be long about pointing it out. But surely even they have to be right the odd time. This one could be well accommodated on the chin.
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