Micheal Clifford
WIT, WISDOM AND THE WITHERING EDGE
Read his brilliant new column cutting to the core of GAA
THERE IS a rib-tickling advert out there in TV land that echoes the GAA’s disciplinary kitchen. You know the one. The washing machine repair man has the unit ripped apart but his eyes are fixed on the wall clock and when it chimes, he drops the tools and declares that he is out of there and away on his sun break. ‘It’s going to be tropic,’ he adds.
‘But what about the clothes?’ pleads the horrified woman of the house.
‘Sure I have me togs on under me trousers,’ he says, pulling at his waistband while the unit falls apart, the floor floods and he heads for the door.
It is not quite that bad but the sense prevails that ever since Congress in 2013 took the seismic step of backing the introduction of black card law into Gaelic football, the GAA still has to finish the job it started.
Ah, the black card. The topic of choice for the tongue-tied at the speed dating night down at the clubhouse, the columnist spooked by the blinking cursor, the Sunday Game pundit in search of a stick.
You want to have a collective whinge on safe ground, then a flash of black is your only man.
They were at it again last Sunday night in Donnybrook, Tomás ó Sé and Aaron Kernan taking the cudgel to the most unloved piece of rule-book legislation since you faced the prospect of being outed from the pulpit at Ten O Clock Mass for being seen at a soccer match.
The cynical pull-down by Kildare’s Niall Flynn on Wexford’s Eoghan Nolan in the final play of their Leinster quarter-final clash drew ó Sé’s fire, who rightly pointed out that the black card which the Kildare player received was of little consolation or use to Wexford.
However, it became an excuse for an impassioned argument for the whole concept to be binned, pointing out that they were constant issues with ‘definition’ and ‘implementation’ and adding that players, managers and even referees did not feel it is working.
But then that has been the case since the off.
Even before it was introduced, it was argued that it would incentivise the use of massed defences – as if that was needed – because players would be too afraid to tackle in oneon-one situations and, as a result, scoring rates would plummet.
What evidence available is to the contrary, with scoring rates going in the other direction. The goal rate – from under two goals, to over two, a game – has climbed, as has the overall scoring average, which was five points higher last summer than it was two years previously when the championship was a Black Card-free zone.
Yes, other numbers have gone south but they are the kind that we could do with less of anyway like frees; there were five fewer per game last summer than in 2013.
Of course, that may have more to do with the introduction of a defined advantage rule than the black card, but those that prosecute the case that the game would be better served in the latter’s absence need to come up with something other than returning the game unprotected to its cynical past. The alternative is to come up with something new but the reality is that there is no pain-free way of doing that.
Kernan chimed in last Sunday night that a 30 to 50-metre penalty that would punish a deliberate cynical indiscretion by awarding the fouled team a scorable free would be a better way.
Can you just imagine the scrutiny and whataboutery a last-minute free