Curley admits refs are "guessing" on square ball - Irish Independent

AS KILDARE fumed over another pivotal decision that affected their chance of a shot at an All-Ireland title, the country's top refereeing official admitted yesterday that they are reduced to "guessing" when they are applying the current square ball rule.
The Lilywhites are furious at referee David Coldrick's decision to over-rule one of his umpires and disallow what looked like a legitimate goal against Donegal last Saturday as a square ball.
Television footage indicated that Tomas O'Connor deliberately checked his run to avoid breaking the rule and then scored a legitimate goal when he moved into the small square to pounce on a ball that had ricocheted off the woodwork.
But Coldrick, like all GAA referees, has no access to slow-motion replays and the chairman of the national referees' committee, Mick Curley, conceded yesterday that the square ball rule is particularly difficult to implement.
"The rule as it exists now means referees often have to guess really -- guess where the flight of the ball is over the square and guess where the player was in relation to that flight," he admitted.
"On a windy day especially, when a ball is kicked long, it travels far faster than a referee can travel and makes it very hard to judge.
"We had a much better solution with the previous experimental rule. It wasn't perfect either but it made the job a lot easier for referees. We wanted that to be kept, big-time, but Congress threw it out."
That experiment allowed players to move into the square once they were not in it when the ball was initially kicked.
Another top referee, Westmeath's Barry Kelly, who has been in charge of two All-Ireland senior hurling finals, backed up Curley's view in a separate interview on Kildare FM radio.
"It is a bit like the offside in soccer, It's pretty much impossible to adjudicate on a square ball," Kelly said.
"You're trying to watch two things at once that are not in the same area of vision.
"But my view -- and obviously I'm speaking to listeners in a county that would feel very hard done by in recent months, and indeed the last couple of years -- is that I still don't think you can eradicate mistakes.
"There's not a player on the Kildare team who didn't make a mistake. There's not a player on any team that doesn't make mistakes. Umpires make mistakes too and referees make mistakes. There will always be mistakes because we're not robots.
"In the GAA we're very slow to embrace change. There have been some very good proposals tried in the National League and then dispensed with quite quickly at Congress.
"Technology has been used at Wimbledon, in cricket and rugby, and you couldn't say it has adversely affected any game, but maybe we could make rule changes first which could eliminate or alleviate any of the problems.
"I accept it hasn't been the greatest year in terms of GAA officiating as we've all made mistakes.
"But it comes with the territory. Human error will come into it. I can't see any way around that. We can perhaps minimise it."
Down's Benny Coulter was given a goal against Kildare in last year's All-Ireland semi-final that looked like a clear square ball offence.
But the Lilywhites benefited themselves earlier this summer when Meath's Graham Geraghty had a legitimate goal against them disallowed on the same contentious rule.
A spate of controversies over scores this summer has increased calls for the GAA to introduced technology to help their match officials.
The association commissioned the Hawk-Eye company to do a study of how it could be applied to their games but it looks unlikely to be used now because of the costs, estimated to be €500,000.

- Cliona Foley

Irish Independent

Forgive me if I'm wrong but was Saturday not a case of the Ref just not having a clue of the rules. You can't have a square ball from a rebound off post or man.

Now admitting the refs are guessing is a load of balls and he is signing his own resignation letter but if the ref didn't know the rules the that's noting short of a disgrace.

Either way Curley should be removed from his position and let someone who is willing to take Referees and Umpires to the proper levels required. If they don't meet those levels then they are out.

Now since Masterson the Wexford keeper has to apologise (me I'd tell them to stick it) then Curley or Coldrick should be made to write a letter to the Kildare squad asking for forgiveness then made to read out to them personally.

Yes I'm still pissed about Saturday but it dosen't take away from the fact that the Refs are awful and will turn people away from games.

Masterson is only apologising to avoid the eight-week suspension he's being threatened with, which would rule him out of club action and he doesn't want to do that to his club, even though he doesn't want to apologise. So he's choking back the vomit but it's only for his club's sake.

A few comments in the "blogosphere" might provide some therapy if nothing else. There was a link to this before on the Hogan Stand site.

http://blog.irishlife.ie/general/who-wants-to-be-a-referee/

I have just searched the GAA rules book in connection with this issue and typically can find no reference to ball coming back off goalposts however the nearest I can find to last Saturdays shambles of officialdom are as follows are are directly quoted form Official Guide Part 2 last updated on June 3rd, 2011
Quote
" Technical Fouls
4.9 For an attacking player to enter opponents small rectange before the ball enters it during the play.

Execption
(ii) When a point is scored from outside the small rectangle and the ball is suffiently high to be out of reach of all players the score is allowed even though the attacking players may have been within the small rectange before the ball provided the player in question does not interfere with the defence " End Quote

Strangely there is no mention of ball coming back off uprights but my reading of the rule is that once the ball is "suffiently hight to be out of reach of all players" there is no SUCH THING AS A SQUARE BALL. So all this talk and debate about being in or not in the square is totally missing the point.

Not quite, totalgaa, that exception only refers to when a point is scored. Which was not in this case.

I also believe that the whole misconception about rebounds is from the first exception to the squareball rule:

Quote :

If an attacking player legally enters the small rectangle, and the ball is played from that area but is returned before the attacking player has time to leave the area, provided he does not play the ball or interfere with the defence, a foul is not committed.

Obviously there is nothing specifically about a rebound but that's the only reference to anything in the rules that I think could be what people are talking about. It doesn't apply in this case as O'Connor wasn't in the square before the ball entered and the ball never left the square between the rebound and O'Connor catching it.

My opinion on the matter is that the ref made an honest mistake. He thought from his very poor viewpoint that O'Connor was in the square. He knows the rules, made a mistake and it's as simple as that. All this moaning and whinging and the witch hunt is very unseemly IMO. Lets put a motion into congress to change the rules to something more appropriate and easier for the ref and umpires.

Cilldara I also noted that exception to the square ball rule but the wording "played from that area" surely means it is touched by a player.

Very unclear could be debated until the cows come home and I agree it is a rule that needs to be cleared up and made more clear for all

totalgaa wrote:

I have just searched the GAA rules book in connection with this issue and typically can find no reference to ball coming back off goalposts however the nearest I can find to last Saturdays shambles of officialdom are as follows are are directly quoted form Official Guide Part 2 last updated on June 3rd, 2011
Quote
" Technical Fouls
4.9 For an attacking player to enter opponents small rectange before the ball enters it during the play.

Execption
(ii) When a point is scored from outside the small rectangle and the ball is suffiently high to be out of reach of all players the score is allowed even though the attacking players may have been within the small rectange before the ball provided the player in question does not interfere with the defence " End Quote

Strangely there is no mention of ball coming back off uprights but my reading of the rule is that once the ball is "suffiently hight to be out of reach of all players" there is no SUCH THING AS A SQUARE BALL. So all this talk and debate about being in or not in the square is totally missing the point.

This happened in a club match I was playing in this recently. Ball was going over the bar, but our player to be fair was in the square.

Referee blew for a square ball even though there wasn't a prayers chance in hell he was going to interfere with it.

Poor refereeing decisions and not knowing the rules are rampant right across the board.

Threatening Masterson with an 8 week ban if he doesn't apologise is madness.
Since when can you get suspended for saying something in an interview?
Why shouldn't he have his opinion heard? This is gone beyond a joke at this stage.

Cilldara_2000 wrote:

. Lets put a motion into congress to change the rules to something more appropriate and easier for the ref and umpires.

Now your making sense.This should have been done by kildare last year but as far as im aware it didnt happen.I'm sure they'll wait this congress and forget all about rule changes they could have put in.Write them down now and organise for a club to put them forward.Lets try change these issues ourselves.

supersub wrote:

Cilldara_2000 wrote:

. Lets put a motion into congress to change the rules to something more appropriate and easier for the ref and umpires.

Now your making sense.This should have been done by kildare last year but as far as im aware it didnt happen.I'm sure they'll wait this congress and forget all about rule changes they could have put in.Write them down now and organise for a club to put them forward.Lets try change these issues ourselves.

Clubs have the power. I'll be looking at it anyway.

Unless somegthng was changed at this years congress playing rule changes are only allowed every 5 years, the last of which was last year I believe, we could be waiting until 2015 before any playing rule can be changed.

Too late for us but it looks like we could have movement on the square ball rule soon. They are no longer tied to changing the rules only once in five years.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/gaa-in-square-ball-uturn-2837849.html

Moves to change the controversial 'square ball' rule in Gaelic football could commence by the end of this month, it has emerged.

A Central Council motion passed at Congress last April has led to the establishment of a standing committee that will monitor the playing rules on an annual basis.

Last night on RTE radio Mick Curley said that David Coldrick having reviewed his decision to disallow Tomas O'Connor's goal on Saturday he is 'distraught'. .....................HE'S DISTRAUGHT???????, HE'S F@CKING DISTRAUGHT????

Ì thinks it's unfair to blame the ref, the whole playing rules situation is a farce. Square ball is only one example. Coldrick did ok otherwise.
Others examples are the number of soft frees handed out during the Leinster final which kept Dublin in the game, this is due to having no clearly defined tackle. It seems that hurling is more robust and you are allowed go in a lot harder.
The handpass rule seems to have been forgotten about complely so that now some of the handpases are definite throws, yet are allowed.
There is also a growing tendency for attacking players to use a hand-off to push a defender out of the way. I have a copy of the official GAA coaching manual, no where does it say a hand-off is a recognised skill. Yet near the end of the game a Donegal forward pushed John Doyle to the ground before continuing his run unimpeded. Either its allowed and we coach it as in Rugby, or its not allowed and the referee punishes it. If it is allowed, in what situations? can you push someone in the back, on the side or front on only?.
One option is that with the speed of the game why not get rid of umpires completely and use two refs one in either half of the field. As things stand the ref needs to be the fittest man on the field.

Thats just plain Silly, you are reducing it from 5 officials to 2, and expect improvement?. also, its unfair to blame the ref?, i'd say is much more unfair to run 40 yards to instruct the umpire who was 10 yards from the incident and over-rule him?, you go tell the Kildare players that it unfair to blame the ref.

One thing I'd question about the O'Connor goal is why were there no Kildare in protesting?

It's probably admirable but would Dublin or cork just accept that decision?

Would it have made any difference? Maybe not and of course it shouldn't but our players should have been in there trying to at least sow some seeds of doubt in Coldrick's mind

It's only unfair in the sense that they powers that be have given him an impossible job to do.

The referee is often the best person to judge whether the ball has gone over the bar or not, especially if he is standing close to the kicker. Rugby can operate with three officials because the ref is up with the play, soccer has three officials again the ref is up with the play. in both cases the pitch is much smaller, GAA has seven and we still see them getting it wrong. Sometimes the worst place to be to judge a point is at the upright.
If there were a ref in each half of the field he would have to cover an area approx 80 metres by 70, not much smaller than an average soccer pitch. There is a lot more scores in gaelic, a lot more contact and a lot more forwards able to pretend that the back has pulled them down. Bernard Brogan is a case in point, he knew he was never going to get to the ball for that last play in the Leinster final so he did the next best thing and fooled the ref into awarding him a dubious free.
If the referee was closer to the play he would have a better view of what is going on.

TheBigFullForward wrote:

One thing I'd question about the O'Connor goal is why were there no Kildare in protesting?

It's probably admirable but would Dublin or cork just accept that decision?

Would it have made any difference? Maybe not and of course it shouldn't but our players should have been in there trying to at least sow some seeds of doubt in Coldrick's mind

Great point and it relates to my post about getting nasty on the pitch. As soon as the ref started running in JD and a few other senior players should have been following him reminding him that Kildare have been shafted enough in the last few years and really put him under pressure.

Brogan did it to us in the Leinster semi, he threw the arms in the air and conned the Ref by putting him under severe pressure.

It's something the lads should be thinking about in the future.

TheBigFullForward wrote:

One thing I'd question about the O'Connor goal is why were there no Kildare in protesting?

It's probably admirable but would Dublin or cork just accept that decision?

Would it have made any difference? Maybe not and of course it shouldn't but our players should have been in there trying to at least sow some seeds of doubt in Coldrick's mind

Agree 100%. If we had kicked up more of a fuss as soon as Coldrick started his run in, the goal could have stood. I hate saying that because I don't like that kind of gamesmanship but it's that kind of mean streak we need to develop.

Think how Meath players reacted when things were up in the air after their "goal" last year. We barely put up a fight at all really to our valid goal being disallowed.

I honestly don't think it would have made a difference if they all ran in.
I'd say he had his mind made up from the time the ball went in and wouldn't have changed it anyway.

I agree Lily4Life, it didn't look like there was much consulttion going on between him and the umpire so he most definitely had his mind made up and went in there to tell the umpire to cross the flags and disallow the goal, he had no interest in the umpires opinion.

Would the incident be in Coldrick's match report?

I'd love to know what went through his mind when disallowing the goal, he seemed so confident aswell.

Duffy keen to address Hawk-Eye and square ball issues
04 August 2011


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