National Forum

John Heslin's Black Card

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Congratulations to Clare on their victory last Saturday.

The black card issued to John Heslin was a disgrace. If you watch the replay back on the Sunday Game you'll that it was
never a black card. You'd wonder why players bother their b*ll*x training four to five times a week for thei season to be ended by an incompetent refereeing decision.

It proved costly at such an early stage in the game and then to lose our captain Ger Egan and next best forward Ronan O'Toole to injuries but we battled to the very end and came up short.

I believe the referee the cost us the game.

Concerned_Supp (Westmeath) - Posts: 71 - 03/07/2019 17:04:57    2205020

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Replying To Concerned_Supp:  "Congratulations to Clare on their victory last Saturday.

The black card issued to John Heslin was a disgrace. If you watch the replay back on the Sunday Game you'll that it was
never a black card. You'd wonder why players bother their b*ll*x training four to five times a week for thei season to be ended by an incompetent refereeing decision.

It proved costly at such an early stage in the game and then to lose our captain Ger Egan and next best forward Ronan O'Toole to injuries but we battled to the very end and came up short.

I believe the referee the cost us the game."
I'm not a fan of the black card for fouls that have nothing to do with stopping score chances. By the letter of the law it was a black card for a deliberate block but it had no impact on the run of play so I don't understand how the sort of foul deserves a black card.

There has been a good few of these types of black cards since the rule was introduced. I don't blame the refs as they can only go on what they see or are told by the linemen etc.

I think a black card should only be used for deliberate fouls that prevent scoring chances. One of the things that really annoy me when at games nowadays is when a player gives away a foul that is borderline a yellow card offense and supporters from the opposition start putting pressure on the officials to give a black card.

Mobot (Donegal) - Posts: 459 - 03/07/2019 17:15:46    2205024

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I blame the dubs

hipster (Dublin) - Posts: 2509 - 03/07/2019 17:26:24    2205031

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Replying To Concerned_Supp:  "Congratulations to Clare on their victory last Saturday.

The black card issued to John Heslin was a disgrace. If you watch the replay back on the Sunday Game you'll that it was
never a black card. You'd wonder why players bother their b*ll*x training four to five times a week for thei season to be ended by an incompetent refereeing decision.

It proved costly at such an early stage in the game and then to lose our captain Ger Egan and next best forward Ronan O'Toole to injuries but we battled to the very end and came up short.

I believe the referee the cost us the game."
Technically a black card. We lost Ger Egan to injury but Ronan O Toole wasn't injured he also got a black card. Apparently you weren't at the game but let us be clear teams that moan about referees costing us a game learn nothing. We should be assesing our own mistakes and making sure that when we meet them in the league there won't be any worries about the refs performance.

jobber (Westmeath) - Posts: 1445 - 04/07/2019 14:59:08    2205478

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To be fair, we'll never know whether we'd have won the game if we still had Heslin and O'Toole on the pitch. Certainly, it would have helped to have Heslin on the frees at the very minimum once Egan went off injured, and O'Toole had been playing well up to that point too.
If we hadn't conceded a goal from a sloppy kick out that maybe we would have won also, but alas, we'll never know.

The black card was supposed to be introduced to stop players from committing cynical fouls which prevented scoring opportunities. You certainly can't say this was the case for either of Westmeath's blacks on the day, and probably not for one of Clare's either.
IMO even the black card won't stop these cynical fouls in a lot of situations. If a player is running through on goal and a team is 2 points up for example, then you are obviously going to pull him down and prevent the goal scoring opportunity, regardless of what punishment you might get for it. The black card isn't going to stop this.

iarmhi_an_mhaith (Westmeath) - Posts: 268 - 04/07/2019 15:35:31    2205488

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I thought a yellow would be fair. Huge decision that could have cost Westmeath the chance of a derby with meath to reach the super 8's.

Jack_Goff (Meath) - Posts: 2920 - 04/07/2019 15:53:05    2205496

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Replying To Concerned_Supp:  "Congratulations to Clare on their victory last Saturday.

The black card issued to John Heslin was a disgrace. If you watch the replay back on the Sunday Game you'll that it was
never a black card. You'd wonder why players bother their b*ll*x training four to five times a week for thei season to be ended by an incompetent refereeing decision.

It proved costly at such an early stage in the game and then to lose our captain Ger Egan and next best forward Ronan O'Toole to injuries but we battled to the very end and came up short.

I believe the referee the cost us the game."
What about players like Gary Brennan who train all their lives for the chance to win kickouts at the end of a game for their county, but have to put up with getting a deliberate shoulder into the chest from opponents after playing the ball? Heslin has nobody to blame but himself - stupid cheap shots like that used to happen in every game but now are rarely seen at all thankfully.

Soma (UK) - Posts: 2630 - 04/07/2019 21:06:53    2205630

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Replying To Soma:  "What about players like Gary Brennan who train all their lives for the chance to win kickouts at the end of a game for their county, but have to put up with getting a deliberate shoulder into the chest from opponents after playing the ball? Heslin has nobody to blame but himself - stupid cheap shots like that used to happen in every game but now are rarely seen at all thankfully."
Agree 100% for all it's faults the black card has reduced the amount of body checks and blocking of runs hugely. I'd be in favour of a red card for anyone preventing a clear goalscoring opportunity by whatever means

lillyboy (Kildare) - Posts: 429 - 04/07/2019 21:28:11    2205643

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