Referees do not have to be perfect, just consistent

Something weird but slightly wonderful happened last Wednesday when, possibly for the first time this season, the manager of a losing team praised a referee for the way he had handled a game.

The manager in question was Pat Devlin, whose Bray Wanderers side had been beaten the previous night at Dalymount by Bohemians, their increasingly bitter rivals. Devlin, though, was generous in his observations on how Hugh Byrne had handled the game.

A few months back, when the sides had met, Aidan O'Regan had issued four red and nine yellow cards. But Byrne had been "marvellous", said Devlin, on a night when not one player was even cautioned.

All of which merely tends to underline just how intractable the question of refereeing standards in our league continues to be. Byrne had Shamrock Rovers manager Damien Richardson positively beside himself in Longford back in late November and was the target for a blistering attack from the same manager a couple of months later.

O'Regan, meanwhile, was "rested" for a month by referee's inspector Pat Kelly in the light of the report on the Cup game between Bohemians and Bray. and John McDermott, had also been subjected to a resting after Bray had suffered a controversial beating at Tolka Park.

Part of the problem is a lack of consistency. While some referees appear perfectly content to destroy games by getting involved at every opportunity, others prefer to take a "law of the jungle" approach. But the bigger problem is within particular games when players do not know where referees are coming from.

It is something that Paul McKeon, for instance, has been guilty of on occasion, not least during the recent game between St Patrick's and Bohemians, when his willingness to dish out yellow cards was unmatched when it came to reds.

On Sunday in Waterford McKeon game a penalty to the visiting team that nobody seemed to agree with and then, late on, seemed to miss Stephen O'Brien handling the ball outside his box. Yet, one has to allow that everyone - even critics - makes mistakes and for the most part McKeon's handling of a poor game was not too bad.

Eddie Barr also made his mark on the title race in recent weeks when he disallowed what looked a perfectly good goal by Derek Swan against Shelbourne in Belfield. There was, he felt, a bit of pushing on the striker's side but nobody else seemed to spot it and given what defenders and goalkeepers are consistently allowed away with, there needs to be more balance.