John Fogarty
If we didn’t know any better, we might think Brian Cody was attempting to put a little pressure on referee James McGrath ahead of Sunday.
The Kilkenny manager’s comments about physicality being taken out of hurling are obviously vested. With Dublin following closely behind them, there is no more physical team in the game.
Cody attempted to qualify his point when talking to reporters on Tuesday. “I'll be probably pilloried for this and that this is the type of game we want to play as we're looked on as this massively physical team. I don't see it that way at all, not in the slightest.”
Those comments sounded much like what was said by Waterford’s Pat Bennett and Kildare’s Niall Carew in thinly-veiled attempts to put an onus on referees before big championship games last year.
But this is Brian Cody. The day he or his team have to rely on the whims of a referee will be a sad one. They’ve never had to before so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
That said, he’s on the rules advisory committee. If he has a problem with where the game's going, surely it’s via his membership of the group that is the best avenue to channel his concerns, not airing them in the media.
Four days from a national final, the timing of Cody’s comments may have been interesting but he has continually beaten the drum about the game being let flow.
But in recent times there have been indications the greatest manager in the history of the game has become vexed with how referees interpret his team’s style.
After last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford which was refereed by Barry Kelly, Cody was left frustrated by the free count of 14-6 against his team.
“How many were Waterford awarded? It sounded like that, it felt like that on the sideline. It’s baffling, baffling.”
Asked if he was disappointed by the contrast in frees, Cody responded: “Baffled, confused, bewildered, can I go further? I never criticise referees.”
Cody is consistent. He said the same thing about match officials last Tuesday: “I’m not going to start giving out about referees in the slightest.”
He shouldn’t be too worried, though. Officiating in hurling has never been as close to lawlessness as it is now.
There are rules in hurling but they are being ignored. Cody’s good friend Mickey Harte hit the nail on the head last week when he said it’s refereed in a completely different way to Gaelic football.
“There’s a different mentality in refereeing hurling. Hurlers can walk into each other, walk over each other, do all sorts of things, in the spirit of the game, and there’s not as much blowing.”
The spirit of the game – that hackneyed phrase used to prop up foul play.
Cody’s most extraordinary point this week was that hurling is not “a dirty game”. But just because there are few sendings off doesn’t back up that case. In fact, it's fair to say what was once a yellow card in hurling is now merely a caution.
Sadly, hurling has become dirtier and more dangerous. Referees swallow their whistles and take comfort from the fact they’re allowing the game to flow.
Admittedly, as former referee Dickie Murphy told the Irish Examiner last month (http://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/officials-face-tougher-job-as-players-bulking-up-says-retired-ref-murphy-191004.html), bulked up players have made it more difficult for match officials to distinguish between what is and isn’t a free.
Theirs is a most difficult task in a faster game that requires the keenest eye to get right but so much is now waved off the perception is they are copping out of making the necessary calls.
It’s almost as if just because players are all now wearing guarded helmets that things have become more no holds barred.
As this writer has pointed out before, it almost pays to foul now. Irrespective of their foul count in last year’s semi-final, Kilkenny won. They also did in the 2009 and 2011 All-Ireland finals when they conceded the lion’s share of frees (70% in ’09, 58% last year).
Counties have long been following Kilkenny’s example. Indeed, there are so many endearing aspects to take from them but one of them isn't necessarily playing the same game that has been fashioned by the finest team ever.
Just because it’s the way hurling is officiated by Cody in one of the famed training games in Nowlan Park doesn’t mean it should be the norm on a national level.
The fact is far too much is being overlooked. Anthony Daly, manager of a Dublin team who hardly shirk from giving or taking a tackle, was furious after the recent first relegation play-off game with Galway, which was also officiated by Kelly.
He said: “Some of the decisions were just hard to believe, fellas with the hurley wrapped around them after catching a high ball and 'play on'.”
The more counties see what can be got away with, the more they will try their luck and where does that leave us? Anarchy?
Contrary to what Cody believes, nobody wants physicality taking out of hurling, but it is now being played way beyond the parameters of its own rules.
Manliness doesn’t come into it. Hurling will always be manly. But officiated properly, it can be fair too.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/3zqPQk-xEvo/post.aspx
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