At first, when referee Seamus Prior brandished the ubiquitous red card - which might yet emerge as the lone star turn of the summer football championship - it was hard to know what Laois forward Damien Delaney had done wrong. True, Dublin defender Paul Croft spent a few moments lying on the turf but the challenge between the pair had seemed innocent enough. Still, Delaney, unlike most of the visiting fans, did not protest too much.

Prior retired at half-time to a cacophony of boos. His dismissal of the Laois free-taker, at a time when the team was already struggling, seemed to have turned the match irrevocably in Dublin's favour. Hard not to interpret what had happened as the establishment favouring its own. But video evidence showed that Damien Delaney raised a boot in the direction of Paul Croft's face or upper body.

There was nothing vicious in the gesture; contact, if existent at all, was minimal and it was simply a moment of costly impetuosity. It is clear that he didn't intend to cause injury to the prostrate Croft. Who knows what irked him? Afterwards, many suggested that his action had been insignificant and did not merit a red card. For instance, on Today FM, Martin Carney, one of the most erudite and entertaining of championship analysts, noted that while Delaney's gesture was "provocative" the subsequent response by the official had been harsh.

And in truth, Delaney's moment of silliness paled into timidity when compared to some of the ugliness which coursed through the Munster football final between Cork and Kerry. The sight of Ronan McCarthy and Maurice Fitzgerald wrestling in the mud was more farcical than nasty, but at various times individual displays of rancour disrupted the game. Nobody was sent off.

Yet for all that, Delaney deserved to see the line. He committed an offence punishable by dismissal; that he chose to demonstrate his momentary fit of pique with a kicking gesture as opposed to, say, a shove, sealed his fate. The lack of injury to Croft was irrelevant.

Afterwards, it was encouraging to hear Tom Cribbin, the progressive Laois manager confirm as much. "If there was a boot involved, the referee was right. That just can't be tolerated in football," he said. Dublin manager Tom Carr, in sanguine mood anyway after the win, was generous in his interpretation, saying it was unfortunate for the Laois player and pointing out that it didn't appear as if Paul Croft had been too badly hurt.

Carr's comment was instructive in that it highlights a mindset traditional in GAA circles and explains a fundamental flaw in the response to transgressions on the field. For too long, there has been a general perception that the severity of censure should somehow correspond with the consequence of the offence. Thus, there was a feeling that the Laois player ought to have survived his indiscretion because it had resulted in no physical harm to the other player involved.

The entire issue of governing various on-field offences came under intense and, for the GAA, embarrassing scrutiny in the wake of the CarlowWestmeath match at the start of the championship. The experienced official Niall Barrett, acting on obscure directions at best, flashed red cards like there was no tomorrow. For six of the players, there wasn't.

On RTE's review show The Monday Game, analyst and Derry forward Joe Brolly recalled his astonishment at hearing of the six dismissals and tuned into the highlights "expecting to see a bloodbath."

Brolly is, when on song, one of the joys of Gaelic football, an elusive little sharp-shooter and never behind the door when it comes to showboating in celebration. He is the type of player who should be protected by officials so that his talents might be allowed flourish. Yet here he was suggesting that the appearance of six red cards in one game would be justifiable only in the light of some sort of apocryphal skirmish, leaving a trail of smashed limbs and spent arteries.

Referee Barrett - who probably deserves a public apology from the GAA for being placed in an impossible position - certainly misinterpreted the new carding system in the match. But even begrudging reflection illustrated that at least two of those sent off had no real grounds for complaint. And if a referee took the notion, he could probably dismiss six players for bookable offences in most championship matches.

But again, Brolly's comment provided an example of a GAA figure, albeit unconsciously, hinting that an event as unprecedented as the production of six red cards should only be preempted by a violent tragedy of Shakespearean scale.

The main reason for this is that there has always been a deeprooted ambivalence within GAA circles about on-field transgressions.

For too long, Gaelic football, in particular, has harboured too many players who compensated for a basic lack of talent with a sort of measured thuggishness which the vagueness of the rules allowed them to elevate to near art form.

Every club in Ireland has them, some have profited at inter-county level, hell, some even claimed All-Stars by virtue of their negativity. It is not uncommon to witness TV pundits describe incidents of blatant boorishness as "a bit of a dig" and grin conspiratorially at the cameras. Too often, the pulling, dragging, shoving and often plain ridiculous shaping rampant in Gaelic football is explained away with the tiresome reminder that it is a `manly' sport. Yet hurling, hardly a sport for the delicate, is not nearly as encumbered by such hindrances.

In some ways, there has been a covert endorsement of violence on the football field in wider GAA circles. Every now and then, stories will emerge of warped episodes of violence exploding out of small-town feuds. When such violence spills over onto the more glamorous stage, it is inevitably followed by a protracted period of chastened apology and grave statements about how such images tarnish the sport.

The recent introduction of the yellow and red carding system is indicative of the GAA's (painfully uneven) attempts to rid itself of the macho posturing and mean-spiritedness which has scarred Gaelic football much more so than hurling.

Despite the tremors caused by Niall Barrett's trigger happiness on the opening days, it will improve discipline and allow athletes to concentrate on playing. There will probably be incidents of players getting away with thuggery before the summer is out. Others might go for minor, virtually harmless infractions. Damien Delaney, by all accounts a clean player, could well be interpreted as one of those.

On Sunday in Croke Park, he did very little, almost nothing. But it was enough and Prior's response will contribute to establishing a new set of norms under which the games - and particularly football - might be nurtured.