Improving the game of Hurling

IN ALL FAIRNESS

Who’d be the referee, eh! The very same people who cry out over the shortage of referees, or a crisis in standard of those who have been brave enough to take up the whistle, tend to be the very same people who aren’t shy about lowering the blade and extremely critical if they feel a referee has had a poor game.

Former Tipperary great Michael ‘Babs’ Keating had many great one-liners but one of his best was that a “clap on the back is only a few inches away from a kick in the arse” and that came to mind when reflecting on the commentary around James Owen’s influence in Sunday’s Munster senior hurling final. Just over a month ago, the Wexford official was lauded for his handling of the round robin clash between the sides but on Sunday much of the post-match commentary was around his handling of the game where 31 frees were awarded.

Having watched the game from beginning to end, the number of frees or the lack of flow weren’t the first things that came to mind. Yes, the conditions played a part and maybe he could have taken them more into account, but in most cases, as was shown by Malachy Clerkin in the Irish Times, the majority of the frees awarded were fouls. There will always be fouls a referee will miss for both sides which is the nature of the game from senior inter-county right down to under 12, but there rarely is an acceptance of that.

Ultimately, the referee is there to enforce the rules. If the fans want the game to flow, the onus is on the players and coaches as much as the referee to make that happen. John Keenan and Thomas Walsh were lauded in some quarters for their handling of the 2022 and 2025 Munster finals because so few frees were awarded, but that was largely the case because the rule-book was discarded to a large degree.

To those who want a match to flow but also want a referee to do their job, to a large extent that is a contradiction as if you go through all games, there are many fouls, soft in nature, that are not called so do we want these to start being blown with games descending into free-fests?

A lot of the issues in refereeing at the moment are largely due to the way the game is being played over the last decade or so, teams taking the ball into contact to try and create offloads with the handpass, the majority of them being throws, but there seems to be no hunger among the authorities to deal with this issue since Nenagh’s Conor O’Donovan first raised it around five years ago.

However, a fork in the road might well have been reached with the setting up of the Hurling Advisory Committee (HAC), led by Wexford native and former Cork manager John Meyler. It is similar to the Football Review Committee (FRC) under the stewardship of Jim Gavin which had dramatically improved the spectacle of the game, which was in a spiral, culminating in the 2024 All-Ireland Final between Armagh and Galway.

Hurling hasn’t reached that point but it is heading in the wrong direction with the focus on physicality and possession over the skills of the game. It doesn’t need massive change but it does require a few slight adjustments which could be massively effective.

I have completed the public survey which is still open on the GAA website until this Thursday. Some of the things I referenced is that a puckout must go beyond the 45-yard line which would eliminate the short puckout to the 21-yard line, largely set up by the defending team who retreat back the field in numbers to cut out the long puckout, something Galway did to a very large extent in the Leinster Final and was very effective.

Another idea would be that the opposition half forwards can’t retreat behind their attacking 65-yard line until the ball is pucked out which would lead to less crowding under a break from a long puckout.

Something is also needed to curb the back-pass to the goalkeeper. Currently, it is a get out of jail card for a defender under pressure to go back to his keeper who is invariably unmarked and can deliver the ball away under no pressure.

If the back-pass to a goalie standing inside the 14 or 21-yard line was eliminated or that a goalie couldn’t control the ball with his hand, it would create more risk in terms of losing possession. I wouldn’t be for restricting a goalie to just being for making saves and pucking the ball out entirely.

The focus on possession has taken much of the 50-50 contests out of hurling as teams look to create scenarios where they retain the ball to the best of their ability. It’s good practise but it’s not exciting and getting the excitement back into hurling is needed and to do that, more risks in terms of how the ball is used are needed.