Diarmuid O'Flynn
AS an observer who prefers to see a referee who lets a game flow, the referee who pauses before bringing whistle to mouth as opposed to the guy who never seems to remove it, this might seem a strange ask, but after another series of blighted games at the weekend the question finally arises: when will our whistlers pick up on a new foul that is choking hurling, a foul that has become endemic, practised now by every team at every level?
I'm talking about hurling’s equivalent of rugby’s wraparound tackle, the arm wrapped around a player in possession of the ball, except of course in the oval-ball game, it’s perfectly legal; in hurling, it’s not.
Sometimes it’s the hand holding the ball that’s held, more often it’s the hand holding the hurley; keep an eye out for it at the next game you attend, a player in possession trying to throw the ball up but unable to do because his arm is being impeded, or a player trying to burst out of a group, his hurley hand trailing, unable to bring his stick forward so he can play the ball, because that arm is being impeded.
More often than not, what happens is that the player in possession ends up being penalised for overcarrying – wrong, totally wrong.
I'm all in favour of teams – forwards especially – battling to win back possession, fighting tigerishly to close down the man with the ball and make it difficult for him to do anything with it, but ‘tying up’ the defender in the literal sense isn’t legal in hurling.
It’s rarely done blatantly, the arms never wrapped fully around a player; just an arm stuck out here, a hurley stuck out there, but always making very definite contact with the arms of the player in possession. In hurling, that’s a foul.
A couple of years ago GAA referees – at the behest of the authorities – came down very hard on the tackle from behind, and many a clean flick of the ball off the stick was blown up, to the consternation of many a player and supporter. Now, however, we have a chasing player sticking his hurley over the shoulder of a soloing player, or wrapping it around the side, and with very definite contact on both occasions, but, no foul. Why not?
We’re getting more and more bunching in hurling, a game that thrived always on being fast, open, and it’s because this type of foul has crept in, to the point now where it’s become an accepted part of the game. Well, it’s not accepted here.
There is an art to the tackle in hurling, an art to dispossessing an opponent – the wraparound tackle is no part of that art. You're always going to have the kind of missed free we saw yesterday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, where Benny Dunne took about 50 steps before getting his goal, where Kilkenny’s Richie Hogan caught the ball three times a few weeks ago in the win over Cork before scoring his late point, and that’s all acceptable – in ‘live’ time none of us in the various press-boxes who witnessed either of those events picked them up, they happened so fast.
But this new foul – everyone can see what’s happening, and it’s choking the game. Time to cut it out, and free up the man in possession again.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/wNvhvHa8cq4/post.aspx
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