Five things we learned this GAA weekend: Refereeing hurling has become an impossible job

Being a hurling referee is an impossible job – but it could still be done better

Has hurling at elite level become impossible to referee? Applying the rules strictly, or as they appear in the rule book, would be inconceivable because the games would be carpet-bombed with stoppages.

Players are conditioned for hard tackling, and in most cases, are programmed to absorb heavy belts and carry on. At intercounty level, especially in the championship, there is a raging appetite for gladiatorial spectacles, none of which can happen without the tacit permission of the referee.

The problem for hurling, and for the top-level referees, is where do you draw the line? Liam Gordon’s performance in the Munster final will be overshadowed by his unfathomable decision not to award a free to Clare in the last minute of stoppage time. Overall, though, he had a good sense of what fouls he could ignore and what fouls he simply couldn’t. Limerick and Clare flaked away, along expected lines.

But there is nothing in the rule book that can help a referee on that score: it comes down to fine judgment and intuition and big-game experience. And it is a slippery road.

Malachy Clerkin: The GAA should make more of St Patrick’s Day - and more of its intercounty stars

---

Shefflin trying to devise a way for Galway to halt Limerick juggernaut

---

Munster CEO defends broadcast coverage of province’s hurling championship

---

Sports Review 2023: Murphy’s incredible reflex save showed hurling’s facility for the impossible

---

In recent weeks a number of high-profile hurling games, including the under-20 final, have been impacted by referees making poor decisions that, in one way or another, influenced the outcome. The pool of top-class intercounty hurling referees is shallow and has been for some time. Coming into the knockout phase of the hurling championship, and with so many one-score games already this year, that is a cause for concern.

One other thing. Gordon applied the advantage rule yesterday as it was originally designed: after five seconds the referee must decide if the advantage is worth persisting with for the team in possession, or whether a free should be awarded. The practice in recent times has been to come back for a free if a move breaks down, or a shot goes wide, regardless of the five-second restriction.

Not a word about that. – Denis Walsh

[ The Schemozzle: Fine margins in a Munster hurling championship for the ages ]

Carey’s point still stands as a monument to the days of sudden-death

Munster hurling finals are the most storied of occasions. Those of sufficient age were all commenting on the similarities with 27 years ago when Clare played Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds. The blazing hot weather beamed down on the crowds moving down the Ennis Road and once again, the home side emerged as winners by a point.

There was no iconic winning score like Ciarán Carey’s in 1996 and on this occasion, Clare simply ran out of road – with the help of a widely-disputed refereeing decision.

There was, of course, one big difference. Back then Clare, defending an All-Ireland for the first time in 81 years, had precisely one match to do so. Defeat in that Munster semi-final abruptly ended their reign at the first time of asking.

Earlier that year, annual congress had decided to open up the hurling championship by breaking the grip of sudden-death provincial finals and from 1997, teams who had lost matches were for the first time readmitted to the championship.

Traditionalists were appalled and I remember some diehard hurling men from Ulster, who used to – and still do – make a pilgrimage to the Munster final, saying that the advent of non-fatal defeats had irreparably compromised the occasion.

All these years later it’s reassuring to see a sell-out crowd – undeterred by the “woke” failure to punish losers – in place for a match that will decide simply the destination of the Munster title with both teams proceeding to the different stages of the All-Ireland.

Rhapsodising about Carey’s winning score 27 years ago, the great hurling writer Kevin Cashman summarised: “Mere fans and enjoyers and chroniclers have the memory of That Point: Mackey has his stand; very shortly, Power shall have his monument; Carey has That Point. The greatest winner ever scored.”

Power was Jackie Power, the Limerick hurler whose statue in Annacotty had just been commissioned.

We can footnote the elegy by pointing out that on Sunday for the first time, Mackey’s Cup, for the Munster hurling championship and dedicated to his memory last year, was presented in Mackey’s stand to one of Mackey’s distinguished heirs, Declan Hannon.

Ciarán Carey still has his point. – Seán Moran

[ Relieved Kilkenny manager Derek Lyng admits ‘I wouldn’t like to be on the other side of it’ ]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

The first piece of silverware in Kilkenny’s post-Brian Cody era was won at Croke Park on Sunday, but the Derek Lyng project has not been a case of out with the old and in with the new.

If anything, it has been a renewal of the values instilled by Cody with the new management blending younger players and some familiar stalwarts. No blueprints were ripped apart on the creation of this Kilkenny side.

The Cats finished Sunday’s Leinster final with five players in their 30s on the field, and over the course of the contest six players of that generation featured – TJ Reid (35), Conor Fogarty (33), Eoin Murphy (32), Walter Walsh (32), Padraig Walsh (31) and Cillian Buckley (30).

Walsh rolled back the years with his performance, scoring 1-2, and Buckley netted the match-winning goal in injury-time.

While some counties, especially with a new manager, can often be overly keen to fast-track veteran players towards retirement, the Kilkenny dressingroom remains a habitat where experience has a central role to play in the overall success of the group. – Gordon Manning

[ Tailteann Cup draw: Cavan to face Down in quarter-finals ]

Laois start finding their stride at just the right time

No team is having a more topsy-turvy 2023 than Laois. Since the start of the league, Billy Sheehan’s side have played 13 matches, with seven wins, four defeats and two draws. Every time they’ve looked like they’re on an upswing, they’ve found a way to fall down. Every time they’ve seemed dead and buried, they’ve shot a hand up through the dirt and hauled themselves out of the grave.

They won five games in Division Four and ended with a points difference of +34, which was significantly better than both teams who finished ahead of them. But they lost out on promotion on a head-to-head to Wicklow. A promising, if ultimately annoying campaign. They beat Wexford in Leinster before getting tonked by Dublin. Nothing new there.

The Tailteann Cup has been the making of them, albeit it has looked for much of the way like the breaking. They survived the group stage without actually winning a game – draws at home to Offaly and in Parnell Park against London seeing them through as the third-best third place team. There was late – exceedingly late – drama in both games and the social media chorus was not kind, to put it mildly.

But then, over the weekend, when they absolutely needed their best performance of the year, they suddenly found it. Laois went to Brewster Park in Enniskillen and beat a Fermanagh side that will be playing in Division Two next year. When they were two points down early in the second half, it was their 37-year-old centre back Mark Timmons who got up for the goal that set them on their way. Timmons made his championship debut 15 years ago last month and has had a career that has been an object lesson in keeping going.

They face Limerick in the quarter-final on Saturday. A season that has been filled with moments at which the end looked nigh still has a bit to run in it yet. – Malachy Clerkin

[ Limerick last longest in another close call with the neighbours ]

Sometimes the shiny wrapping paper does matter

There are four hurling weekends left in this year’s championship, including this Saturday’s preliminary quarter-finals (Carlow v Dublin and Offaly v Tipperary, if you’re asking). And then that’s it. Pull the shutters down on the 2023 hurling championship.

Feels like it’s gone by in a flash doesn’t it? Which would make you wonder about the scheduling of the weekend just gone.

Why were the two provincial finals squeezed in together, cheek to jowl, like kids in the 80s going on a Sunday drive?

Surely it made sense to move one of them to Saturday evening and give the games a bit of space to breathe? Admittedly the last three Leinster finals have been held on a Saturday evening, and were underwhelming as occasions, but Limerick and Clare have already had a Saturday meeting this season and the atmosphere felt more like Glastonbury than the Gaelic Grounds.

Larry McCarthy just said on Morning Ireland that they’ll look at the situation for next year, and admitted that it’s not optimal to have them both on the same day, but do we really need a committee to tell us that? Surely it should have been obvious in advance?

And surely the same people should have known that the Leinster hurling final attendance would struggle to get beyond 25,000, and moved it to a more suitable ground, rather than having the atmosphere lost among the low-flying seagulls in Croke Park.

When it’s in full flow, the hurling championship is a gift to the country, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give some love and care to the packaging. – Patrick Nugent