Physicality needs protecting in forward-friendly game

No more than Fiji, Westport wouldn't be renowned as a hurling stronghold but wind of Ben O'Connor's comments last weekend reached us.

Our small ball cousins have a problem with overly fussy refereeing and not for the first time. The Cork manager is on the warpath over referees' assessors and the GAA hierarchy trying to sanitise the sport.

I suppose it makes a change from years ago, when football people were always cribbing about this, that and the other, while hurling people were forever waxing lyrical about the game.

How the script has flipped.

I'd be personally sympathetic to the concerns that physicality is being clamped down on too much in the modern game.

Don't worry. I'm not going to go into the intricacies of hurling officiating. Keener observers than I have noted that hurling referees do have a habit of using the league to lay down the law or set a standard.

Then once you reach the Munster final stage, the shackles are off and players are let belt away. Last year's Munster final, you needed to decapitate someone to get a yellow card.

But there are lessons for football too. We have to be mindful of preserving the physicality which is such a central part of the sport. It's particularly important at a time when the rules have been overhauled in a way which is certainly more to the forwards' liking.

In hurling, it's the referee's assessor (up in the stand, etc) who's copping most of the flak, rather than the poor referee himself.

I used to have a decent relationship with most referees, I think. They tended to laugh at me anyway given that they had the yellow card halfway out of their pocket as soon as they saw me.

You became very familiar with the top refs in any case. During our peak years, we would have the same guys officiating our games the whole time.

They all had their quirks, which you learned to adapt to over time. David Gough was always looking 50 yards ahead of him to check if a back was pulling a forward. Maurice Deegan loved having a chat and a laugh with players during the game.

Joe McQuillan seemed to ref nearly every Dublin-Mayo game in our era, which I suppose made him particularly unpopular with our supporters over time. It's no secret that he acquired the unflattering nickname 'Dublin Joe' down here. Although, he was ref when we beat them in the 2012 semi-final, which people forget.

My main grievance with him was the free he gave against me in the 2017 final after Paddy Andrews and Ciaran Kilkenny ran into one another. I'm still sore about that one.

We had David Coldrick plenty too. Of them all, he was probably the ref who allowed the most physical contact, compared to Gough who was stricter and more of a stickler for technical infringements.

Coldrick, mind, did send me off in the drawn 2014 All-Ireland semi-final - an episode which we referred to as the 'Riverdance incident' in our camp.

I was being held by Johnny Buckley and Donnachadh Walsh in the tackle after we'd been given a free and I kicked out at one of them, Michael Flatley style. I forget which of them. I kicked fresh air in actual fact.

I was free to play the infamous replay in Limerick on a technicality. I was officially done for a striking action but I made no contact. It should have been an 'attempted strike'. On that basis, I got off.

That was decided by the CCCC on the Thursday - two days before the replay. I headed down to Limerick then on the Friday. Fortunately, it didn't get as far as the DRA (Disputes Resolution Authority), as it did with Diarmuid Connolly before our semi-final with Dublin the following year - another episode in which I had a central involvement but we'll draw a veil over that.

The biggest change during my career regarding contact was the introduction of the black card. That definitely changed your mindset around last ditch defending. You had to stop yourself hauling down an attacking player in desperate scenarios.

Seán Cavanagh always gets the blame for that - indeed, he used to blame himself - but the rule was actually already coming in before his drag down of Conor McManus.

The new rules have re-invigorated the sport as a spectacle but they've probably made life harder for defenders. The play has become more stretched and it can be harder to get contact.

With all the excitement about higher scoring and end-to-end football, we have to be careful we don't lose the physical edge to the game. Basketball is a great sport to watch but we don't necessarily want Gaelic football to become an outdoor replica of it in terms of contact.

Last year's Connacht final refereeing performance by Paddy Neilan was a good template I thought in terms of referees allowing physical contact under the new rules.

We've a full programme this weekend after the gap week and I'd expect Dublin to get back on the horse at home to a Monaghan team struggling for traction. James McCarthy alluded to Monaghan's incredible league record against Dublin in the last decade - no loss since 2017! - but they look too depleted to be able to swing a win in the capital, against a Dubs side who are feeling they way back to form.

This weekend, one of the biggest games is in Newbridge, where Kildare take on Derry in a match which is shaping up to have implications for the promotion race.

Kildare have had a cracking start to the league. Winning last year's Tailteann Cup has released the pressure on them to a huge extent and Brian Flanagan seems to be getting a tune out of the younger guys.

Derry got that crucial long-awaited win against Tyrone the last day to give their promotion tilt a big shot in the arm. That home game against Tyrone was always earmarked as pivotal at the beginning and the victory may get them back moving in the right direction.

Reluctantly, I'd give Derry the nod to get the win. They have the stronger body of work behind them and should have got a confidence boost from the win the last day. But there's a buoyancy and freedom about Kildare which makes them dangerous.

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