Kieran Donaghy has added his voice to calls for the black card rule to be scraped.

The Kerry star, who launched his autobiography What Do You Think of That? last week, believes the black card should be replaced with the 50-metre rule that is used in Aussie Rules.

"It's obvious it has to be gotten rid of," he said in an interview with RTÉ.

"It's turning the end of games into huge frustration for fans and players. If you are down five points and you're trying to come back, teams have been told beforehand by their managers, 'take a black card'.

"Why? Because the ref will have to come over and talk to you, then he'll have to issue a black card, then we've to try and get a sub in, that's two minutes, you're losing a game, you want to keep the game [going].

"They have a thing in Aussies Rules, it's so simple - the 50-metre rule. If you give away a foul in Australia and you don't throw the ball back to the guy, into his hands or if you toe-poke it away to allow your team to get back, the ref blows the whistle, runs 50 metres, the ball goes up the pitch and over the bar.

"That's how you punish cynical play, [on the] scoreboard.

"For cynical fouls, for a pull-down or an ankle-trip, all these black card [fouls] that happen inside the 21, I'd say automatic penalty."

Donaghy added: "You'd speed the game up. People would have to be honest in how they defend late on. I think it would be so much easier for the referees.

"You'd have players correcting their own team-mates, 'hey man, leave off that cynical fouling, it's killing us on the scoreboard'. Now a fellow is nearly winking at [his team-mate] if he pulls some fellow down at the right time.

"It's just turning into a farce of black cards, rugby tackles, fellows delighted to be taking black cards, subs coming on, slowing the whole thing down."

Tweet

Most Read Stories