Replying To PatOLogical: "Will watch back but overall good reffing job by Johnny Murphy in today's league final. Again 1 or 2 calls on either side ( with the benefit of rear view mirror) that could've gone the other way. eg Adrian Mullen yellow card and free appeared to be a clear shoulder to shoulder tackle to me, no free and no yellow . Adam Hogan got a free out late on that should have been a free in for his immediately preceding hold around the neck . Possible Kilkenny goal chance cut off here, Juss sayin
Well done Johnny!"
Shoulder to shoulder me arse. That was a clear yellow.
The back card was a farce too. How was it a clear goal scoring opportunity if they fouled played didn't have the ball. That was a crazy call.
Replying To CTGAA10: "Limerickandproud,that's a very good question..I'm racking my little brain to see what names I come up with..I rate Tomas Walsh in Munster and malone from Clare..I also thought John o halloran from limerick but not sure is he on national list..another one is Kennedy from tipp..in Leinster best man had to retire,John Keenan..I thought stack from Dublin was good but don't know where he is gone..I've seen cunning from Antrim and again he seemed to be a decent one..you notice I havnt named to many of the well known fellas..always liked Cleere doing games to.."
Not current unfortunately but Fergal Horgan best I ever saw. Would he ever think of coming back, it would be great. Failing that then Paud O' Dwyer would be next best. John Keenan huge loss also. If you have to retire from inter county at 50 then the same rule should apply to the umpires.
Replying To Passer_By: "Colum Cunning is decent enough in my book. Should start getting a few higher profile games.
Hand passes now are no more than a joke. They're let go more so in tier one in my view.
Lads cutting their teeth at inter county refereeing start further down the ladder and feel the need to blow for just about anything because of some over zealous GAA assessor sitting in the stand with a scorecard. Thats the start of the problem.
On the whole, there's as poor a crop of inter county referees at the moment as there's ever been, to my mind.
The age rule is a complete nonsense. With age comes experience. Should be down to a straight forward fitness test (that dosent need to be to the Army Rangers standard either btw). If you pass the test, what odds does it make when your last birthday was.
What is the criteria for being an umpire at an inter county match, does anyone know? Serious question. I bet you don't even need an eye test."
Thr assessor isnt over zealous but in place to help officials improve. It should be thevsame at every level with assessors/,evaluators assisting refs be it a ref in their firat season doing under 12/14 games or someone reffing 10 years and doing senior club county finals. It cant aimply be down to fitness test alone. Needa to bw far more than that.
Refs need more training and opportunities to meet up within their county or division of county for the larger counties where they can discuss incidejts in gamesz review clips from recent games of things refs did well or could do better.