Hawk-eye will not address goal disputes in GAA matches

As with any new technology the first thing we wanted to know about Hawk-Eye is what it can and cannot do – before questioning what happens when things go wrong, or at least aren’t covered in the instruction manual.

Inevitably then we ended up listing off several highly unlikely scenarios, because Hawk-Eye is essentially and deliberately simple: it can either confirm or deny the accuracy of points scored in both football and hurling, should there be any doubt, but only in Croke Park (at least for now), and cannot detect any such ambiguity over the scoring of goals.

Indeed on that note it’s not actually the so-called goal-line technology, but rather point-upright technology: it will also involve the addition of a new review official on match day, but is designed to be “completely non-evasive”, according to Steve Carter, managing director of Hawk-Eye Innovations.

The processes employed in the technology, however, aren't quite as simple. At a sort of premiere showing of the technology at Croke Park's press conference room – ironically the place where several disputed points have been raised in the past – the GAA's director of games development and research, Pat Daly, found himself having to refer to certain playing rule changes which may come into effect on the back on Hawk-Eye.

Review official
The situation where the goalkeeper bats the ball or sliotar out from above the crossbar is one of the occasions where the new review official can intervene, when it's unclear whether a point was actually scored: typically, the referee waves play on, or else allows the point, but now the review official can communicate the correct call to the referee. Should the referee have allowed the point, and the goalkeeper subsequently restarted play, this scenario would thus necessitate the referee now restarting play, based on the correct decision, but throwing in the ball on the halfway line.

“There was a provision made, on the back of the decision at Congress, for Central Council to legislate a new rule in that scenario,” explained Daly. “But it is a most unlikely scenario. In fact there wasn’t one such case in the last 14 months of testing.”

Hawk-Eye will take in a height of 26 metres – as in the 13-metre height of the posts, with an additional 13 metres of “virtual” post height, effectively doubling the range of detection area (this was deemed sufficient, with only one shot in 700 going above this 26-metre range, and thus deemed too high to be tracked).

Pat Doherty, the GAA’s national match officials manager, explained the process whereby the new review official can or will intervene: “The first port of call will always be the umpire, who will indicate to the referee he wants the Hawk-Eye . . . within three to four seconds the graphic will appear on the big screen indicating either point or miss. But there will be no additional time allowed or allotted for the use of Hawk-Eye, the assumption there being it will only take a matter of seconds.”

Doherty confident
Doherty was also confident neither umpires nor referees will be reverting to Hawk-Eye on an increasingly frequent basis; in other words every time any doubt arises over a score: He said: "We certainly don't believe they will. Like anything else the real proof of the pudding will be in the eating."

No Hawk-Eye footage will be available in hindsight, to either dispute or confirm decisions that happened in the course of the game. The issue of cost-benefit wasn’t addressed in detail given the “commercial sensitivity” of the technology (sponsored by Specsavers). On how soon the technology might be installed at other grounds Daly was more forthright: “Ideally we would like to see it at every GAA ground, but this is only the commencement of the process, and that has to be recognised.”