After every match this year Supporters/Players/Managers have all got one thing in common, they complain about the standard of ref's .

Ref's are human they will make mistakes which I can live with but what frustrates everyone is the inconsistency not just between different ref's but also the what stage the match is at early on or late on in the match you will see a ref's make 2 different calls for identical incidents.

Where does the fault lie , in my opinion it lies in 2 places.

1 the pundit community(TV/Radio/Paper/Former players etc) ; They harp on about free flowing football and the need for the ref to let things flow. They are quick to jump on ref's who don't , they are quick to write their opinions down . Again ref's are human they might say it doesn't effect them but I believe it does.

2 The GAA ourselves ; A rule book should be there black and white no subjective decisions. did he trip him yes or no ? Did he strike him yes or no ?
If we had this and enforced this for a year or two I have no doubt the game would get better . and for the elite footballer who puts his life on hold to play for his county maybe he would not feel hard done by inconsistent ref's.

ulsterrules (Donegal) - Posts: 259 - 03/10/2016 14:05:01    1921894

Steelfixer (USA) - Posts: 41 - 03/10/2016 14:24:05    1921905

cavanman47 (Cavan) - Posts: 5012 - 03/10/2016 14:58:29    1921930

Steelfixer (USA) - Posts: 41 - 03/10/2016 15:02:47    1921934

I would add a 3rd condition here. There is a huge dìfference in the way games are refereed for small counties early in champ and those later. When a laois carlow or antrim player is red carded for an attempted strike the pundit community days "he only had himself to blame" . When a kerry or dublin player does it in semi final and gets a yellow they say " sensible refereeing. You dont wanna see the best players going off in a semi". There are 1 or 2 referees in particular who wave cards around like confetti at east targets , but cant find them later in the year. Its so frustrating.

Malonemagic (Laois) - Posts: 766 - 03/10/2016 15:20:09    1921946

I'm afraid the GAA rule book is only for a short person to stand on so he/ she can see over the person in front of him/ her. I am sick of watching big games on TV or leaving Croke Park constantly complaining about referees and poor decisions that he made or didn't make, look at the hurling final can you remember the name of the ref? A few can but most can't, why? Because he had a good game, made the big calls when needed, had good men around him supporting him and telling him things that he didn't see but more importantly the hurling rules are better defined than football, they aren't changed or tweaked every few years like in football, as was said at the top of this page we need rules for football to be properly defined and no changing it,
for example when we were kids we were taught to tackle with 1 hand and a ref told us that we couldn't slap down the ball out of an opponents grasp, we had to tip or punch the ball up from under his hands so the ball would rise to his head for you to grab,
now look back at football matches in the past few years, players tackle with 2 hands punching like a boxing match, why, because legally they are actually trying to touch the ball with 1 hand at a time briefly for a second or 2 before the other hand takes over. How many times has a ball being slapped down or dragged from an opponents grasp? It happens in every game.
We often got punished at club level for 2 or more players either shadowing an opponent with the ball or having our hands in the tackle yet the 3rd man tackle is allowed at county level now.
We often got punished for standing up straight and using the chest no hands and blocking an opponent charging through with the ball, it wasn't a foul but club refs didn't agree has to be shoulder to shoulder.
Shouldering has disappeared unless you are trying to start a fight. A number of changes are needed and is up for everybody to give their view,
for me you have to start with kickouts, the ball should have to go forward and cross the 45 metre line,
maybe the mark idea of a clean catch from a kick out between the two 45m lines could be brought in,
the tackle had to be clearly defined what you can and can't do, maybe the underage idea of 1 hop 1 solo then pass the ball,
this boring crap of slowing down the play with hand pass after hand pass is killing the game,
the media pundits want the ball to be kicked more but majority of kicks are 50/50 and are a stupid thing to do, maybe bring in the idea of 5 hand passes before you kick it may help,
it's impossible to tell players to stay in their correct positions but if the ref shops play due to an injury then players should stay in their spots because I have seen a number of times where the ref stopped play while 1 team was attacking, while play was stopped the defending team put 15 men behind the ball where there was 8 defending before ref stopped play
Define the black card rule and introduce a sin bin system of 10 mins for outfield fouls no replacement but for personal fouls within the 30m line dragging or tripping a forward is a straight red
We need a 4th official in the stands watching everything including using video footage to tell the ref of things he missed and if necessary bookings, if you define the rules on tackling clearly and a separate set of eyes high up in the stands then the off the ball incidents would reduce and the card system would work properly and hopefully speed up the game

riverboys (Mayo) - Posts: 1389 - 03/10/2016 15:45:55    1921971

agree with most posts here. most GAA pundits don't think deeply enough before making stupid comments . I even read in the build up to the game one former player turned pundit who, in the same article wanted to ref to clamp down on things early on but also wanted the ref to let the game flow . It's not the ref's mandate to let the game flow. It's the ref's mandate to apply the rules of the game. If the players break those rules then they should be pulled up on them, Whether there are 100 frees or none in the game. The GAA pitch is too big and the ball travels too great a distance for the referees to keep up with play. It's time for all other officials to take a more active role or else have 2 referees per match. Most "good defending" nowadays is actually foul play because defenders are holding or hitting the man in possesion (which is a foul by the rulebook. So it's pot luck whether you get a free for an illegal tackle or a free against you for over-carrying or neither. Tight games are being decided on these issues.

s goldrick (Cavan) - Posts: 5518 - 03/10/2016 15:53:14    1921980

arock (Dublin) - Posts: 4896 - 03/10/2016 18:25:25    1922061