Yesterday Aidan O Shea was running through the Cork half when the Cork number 6 (forget his name) start pulling O Shea's jersey but that's all he didn't pull him to the ground yet the referee gave number 6 a black card, I thought you had to pull the player to the ground for it to be a black card? Andy Moran did something similar in the league two years ago and didn't get a black card cause he didn't pull him to the ground I think that was the first time we all knew this was the rule yet yesterday it's given me more questions about the black card. Maybe they've changed the rule or else the ref doesn't know the rule?

clondalkindub (Dublin) - Posts: 9926 - 01/02/2016 19:50:36    1821431

A lot of incorrect black cards at the weekend. O'Driscoll from cork also Neil McGee and Ryan Wylie. There is three I seen at the weekend the referees got wrong.

shaggylegend (Monaghan) - Posts: 1928 - 01/02/2016 20:21:00    1821445

Refs have probably been told to be stricter with black cards and this ref has erred on the side of giving the card.

As far as I'm aware the rules haven't been changed.

That rule always struck me as being stupid by the way. You don't have to haul a man to the ground to warrant more severe punishment than a yellow.

The sooner they do away with the rule for good the better.

Whammo86 (Antrim) - Posts: 4209 - 01/02/2016 20:37:06    1821452

I'm open to correction here but I think there is a new black card offence, when a player denies another a goal scoring opportunity it's an automatic black card. Hence Wylies and McGees

mhunicean_abu (Monaghan) - Posts: 1044 - 01/02/2016 20:43:33    1821455

definitely O' Driscoll's . I thought it wasn't even a free. btw

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5518 - 01/02/2016 21:47:30    1821493

From day 1 iv spoken out with complete despise for the black card, at this point i'm almost as bad as the water protesters. The issuing of black cards over the weekend was suspect at best in my opinion. They have never worked and they should be scraped.

Can we not just be the simple thing for once in the GAA. 10 minute sin bin for a player who intentionally 1) Prevents a probable score and 2) Deliberately commits a foul to halt progress without any effort to play the ball. Its plain and simple.

TheFullBack (Galway) - Posts: 110 - 02/02/2016 10:54:35    1821537

Also the black cards on Donacha Walsh and Seamus O Shea (last years replay) were a joke , that's not what the black card was brought in for.

clondalkindub (Dublin) - Posts: 9926 - 02/02/2016 11:20:38    1821553

A lot of incorrect black cards at the weekend. O'Driscoll from cork also Neil McGee and Ryan Wylie. There is three I seen at the weekend the referees got wrong.

shaggylegend (Monaghan) - Posts: 1928 - 02/02/2016 11:26:43    1821556

TheFullBack

Gaelic Football isn't suited for the sin bin, it was tried before and it didn't work. The idea behind the black card is good but refereeing of it is pretty inconsistent, the Gaa could bring in match bans for yellow card accumulation as an alternative.

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 02/02/2016 11:27:59    1821558

Problem is the referees don't know the rules or decide to use there own version of rules. The biggest problem is referees are not been made accountable.

mrfox (Wexford) - Posts: 338 - 02/02/2016 11:39:22    1821566

There were at least 2 if not 3 in the first half of the Dublin v Kerry game too.

CroiGorm (Dublin) - Posts: 1547 - 02/02/2016 11:40:12    1821567

HTaem,
I think football and hurling are perfectly suited to introducing a sin bin, the issue is you have to take timekeeping out of the referees hands then and we have seen this is something there has been absurd resistance to (Chance of missing out on lucrative replays). Losing a player or offering up some sort of free shot at goal are the only things which would truly deter cynical play, if you risk losing a goal for pulling someone down then you'd think twice.

Consistency of application would be a major issue also but suspensions could be retrospectively added and if a team is overly cynical then they play handicapped with fewer players not a hard concept but as we all know the GAA is slow to adopt things which will improve a situation and even the black card was a ridiculous compromise in the end.

duckula20 (Antrim) - Posts: 175 - 02/02/2016 12:04:20    1821581

Yesterday Aidan O Shea was running through the Cork half when the Cork number 6 (forget his name) start pulling O Shea's jersey but that's all he didn't pull him to the ground yet the referee gave number 6 a black card, I thought you had to pull the player to the ground for it to be a black card? Andy Moran did something similar in the league two years ago and didn't get a black card cause he didn't pull him to the ground I think that was the first time we all knew this was the rule yet yesterday it's given me more questions about the black card. Maybe they've changed the rule or else the ref doesn't know the rule?
clondalkindub (Dublin) -

I am delighted someone else spotted this in relation to the Cork number 6. What a stupid decision. I just watched league Sunday last night - the ref was so sure as well despite players telling him. Im unsure about the McGee one ? Does a plater get a black card for sliding ? If so then McGee deserved to go.

Put simply - the refs do not know what they are doing however I feel for them as the rule changers have just made reffing much more complicated.

TheRightStuff (Donegal) - Posts: 1688 - 02/02/2016 12:59:05    1821612

@Htaem

Why is Gaelic Football not suited for a sin bin?

TheFullBack (Galway) - Posts: 110 - 02/02/2016 13:47:45    1821632

I've seen at least 3 black card incidents so far in games and all of them resulted in yellows.All three were rugby tackles around the waist as the player was away..

ziggy32001 (Meath) - Posts: 8354 - 02/02/2016 14:02:23    1821635

The rule is fine & it has stopped a lot of the nonsense that masqueraded as football.

I agree that the implementation isn't great at times but referees like the rest of us are human & prone to error.

On balance I would keep the black card but just keep improving the implementation.

MuckrossHead (Donegal) - Posts: 5028 - 02/02/2016 14:39:25    1821648

Nearly every game there are some team's supporters scratching their heads and spitting venom at the referee over the black card rule.

It is all so confusing.The players involved don't seem to know what card the referee will produce.The tv & radio commentators are nearly always in disagreement.The fans don't know.Some black cards are given correctly.Others are not.This is a mess.If it wasn't so serious it would be funny.Father Ted officialdom!

cuederocket (Dublin) - Posts: 5084 - 02/02/2016 14:41:48    1821650

Pulling a jersey is not a black card its a noting offence if you recall in all ireland semi final cian o sullivan pulled a mayo player back when he was in full flight and he never got any card ref just took his number which was correct decision as commenters actual said it was the correct decision of ref.
If you give black cards for pulling jerseys all defenders would be off the field.

Yourjoking (USA) - Posts: 704 - 02/02/2016 14:45:57    1821655

Even do jersey pulling is not a black card offence it should be. Any smart manager will be telling there players to hit the ground if there jersey is been pulled so as it is regarded as a pull down, which is a black card offence.
The constant jersey pulling epically off the ball by defenders is destroying Gaelic football and referees and there umpires are doing nothing about it. sometimes the umpire will bring it to the referees attention after the forth or fifth offence which is way to late in the game.

mrfox (Wexford) - Posts: 338 - 02/02/2016 15:19:16    1821667

duckula20 & TheFullBack

I see what you's are saying and I'm certainly not championing the black card, in fact it's probably more of a failure given how inconsistently it's refereed.

But the reason why I think the sin bin is unsuitable is because of the nature of Gaelic Games, they're not like rugby where there is a sin bin. Rugby is a very physical game where you can bring players down deliberately (it's a fundamental of the sport), hurling and football are less physical and more about the skill. Now one of the skills you would be putting under real pressure were you to introduce the sin bin would be defending because defenders would be terrified to make a mistake, have the referee think it was deliberate and then put them off for 10mins. At least with the black card if the referee makes a mistake you're not down a player but if a player was wrongly sin binned that's a disaster for a team.

Think about it, in the 2012 AI football championship there was an average of 7 yellow cards per game, the average dropped to 3.4 per game in 2014 but that was after the introduction of the black card so you could still say the average per game is around 6 or 7. Now compare this to rugby where the average is generally 1 per game (RWC 2015 as an example) and the game itself is 10 minutes longer.

None of these stats make me believe that the sin bin is the way to go, especially after it was tried a decade ago and didn't really work out. Just from a personal point of view, I remember an O'Byrne cup game be teen Kildare and Meath where at one point our entire fullback line was in the bin, it was farcical stuff!

Htaem (Meath) - Posts: 8657 - 02/02/2016 16:57:16    1821701