Reprieve for St. Mary's - EDIT - All Referees now on strike

[Hocker]

Brian Gavin was well within his rights to referee that match at the weekend as it was an intercounty challenge match.
I've been reading as an innocent by-stander for the last week since this strike was first announced because firstly I didnt want to get drawn in on the whole
thing as LS and a few others understand that i am closer to this situation more than anybody else - I actually know all the facts.
There has been alot of bias bullshite written by certain people and i now feel that I have no choice but to let everybody know exactly whats going on.

Fact: Referee Michael Mahon was struck from behind following U-21 match between mary's & Rynaghs last March leaving him bruised on the jaw and neck.
Fact: Contrary to different reports given here, Assailant had a shinrone GAA top on him, who cares whether he was a selector or spectator.
Fact: Gardai also witness attack and watch assailant flee scene - ask Mahon if he wants to report incident, Mahon declines.
Fact: Following various meetings etc between county board and shinrone officers, Shinrone decline to release the name of the person, claiming complete ignorance of who theperson was and whether or not he was wearing a club top or not.
Fact:Following enquiry, county board hand down 2 year suspesnion to St Mary's club
Fact:Hearings committee (apparently containing a Shinrone man) allow St. Marys back into championship last month on appeal
Fact:Referees call meeting for last Thursday night to discuss grievances - 15 out of 17 referees attending vote in favour of strike (All club games within the county) for last weekend.
Fact:Mahon meets county board members Pat Teehan & Martin Boland as well as Cartage Buckley on Monday night - Asks a number of questions as to why hearings committee over-turn decision on St. Mary's suspension. Board claim 'there's nothing we can do about it'.
Fact: Referees will meet again on Wednesday night - Minus Cartage Buckley, he wants nothing more to do with situation. they are all siding with Mahon on this one, folks this could rumble on for a while yet.

To be continued..... Feel free to PM me, I have to restrict what i post on this board as alot of shit written here in the last week has angered me.

[Archangel]

As it has been alleged, when the ref was struck, he was in 'conversation' with a St.Mary's official, so as the ref was struck from behind, would that official not have been in the best place to witness it? I don't know which club he was from, but it's clear there are issues here with publicly naming the culprit.
It would appear that the referees grievance is that at this moment, that incident has gone unpunished, and to any sane person you have to support them. What will happen as this goes on, is that at this moment most people/clubs are with the refs and and are happy to support the strike. If this stretches on and it looks like there's no solution coming fast, all the other clubs & players in the county will become more agitated. They will have been training away and the fixture list is piling up, so the pressure has to give. I don't want to see a 'solution' being forced upon anyone or any club, but haste in sorting this out is the best policy.

[Hermes]

Fact:Following enquiry, county board hand down 2 year suspesnion to St Mary's club
Fact:Hearings committee (apparently containing a Shinrone man) allow St. Marys back into championship last month on appeal

Both the original penalty and the more lenient one were recommended and implemented by the SAME two committees, which is a bit different from saying the hearings committee overturned a county board decision. Whether they were correct or not is another story, but your post implies that the hearings committee simply disregarded and overturned a county board decision, which is not how it works.

As for a Shinrone man being on the hearings committee, not true either but even if it were, anyone with a vested interest in the outcome of any hearing must step down.

[Offalys Future]

Brian Gavin was well within his rights to referee that match at the weekend as it was an intercounty challenge match.

Brian Gavin can do what he wants but the Offaly referess are on strike. If they really wanted to make a stand and if he was fully supportive of the strike he wouldnt have reffed that match.

The way the Shinrone club have behaved in this matter is a disgrace and i hope they get a severe punishment for their ignorance.

[Barracuda]

The ref brought most of this down upon himself. He should never be struck or never assualted in any way - I agree with all there. But what I dont understand is how no one here has not questioned his actions which are at the heart of this mess

The Ref made a bags of the match (at the end) and lets blow away all the smoke and call it as it is- how should that be punished - I agree not by hitting him but how ?

I appreciate it can be a judgement call in most cases and the ref's word is final and all that, BUT and its a big but, Shinrone were dealt a very very hard blow by poor decisions, ones which appeared to be deliberate.
What can be done to stop that happening again ......... Take off the rose tinted glasses and look again. Lets be clear- I do not agree or think he or anyone should ever be assaulted like this- thats wrong.
Shinrone should for sure be punished for this, but I claim so should the Ref too.

[Muck Savage]

Barracuda - Sure I could say the Sinrone lads brought it on themselves for hitting a few wides.. If they didn't hit those wides sure we'd not be in this mess. Why didn't yer man go out and box the head of every lad on the team?
I wasn't at the game but he may have made a mistake, the very same way as every player going out to play a game makes mistakes. I don't know a Ref that will tell you he refed a game and didn't make a mistake, but the amount of abuse they get vs a player that makes a mistake is uncalled for. If your going to punish a ref for a mistake then you need someone to judge these games, so in this case who makes that call? now that opens a whole can of worms. There won't be a ref in the county in a few months if something like this is brought in.

'tis a week into the strike, I saw one small bit in the Indo last week and nothing else. A full county of GAA players are not playing and like MFF said everyone was talking about 50 Cork players that decided to stop playing. I'm tossing around the idea of transfering to a club outside the county, not because of this but where I'm living, but this will soon make up my mind. If the ref's are reading some of the quotes on here then they'll be out for a while.

[Lone Shark]

Barracuda, no offence but I couldn't disagree with you more. Like most of the people on this board, I wasn't at the game, but you cannot tell me that Mick Mahon went out with a deliberate intent to favour one side over the other. As Muck Savage pointed out, refs are as prone to human error as any of the 30 players on the field, but for some reason people think that they should be flawless. Last Saturday night Niall McNamee missed a rake of frees, gave away the ball several times and generally had an off-day. It happens - and there isn't a single rational Offaly supporter who would do anything but put his name down on the teamsheet first if they were picking the team for Aughrim on Sunday week. Why is a ref that makes four or five bad calls (if he did - I have no idea) all of a sudden a pariah?

Ask any referees assessor and the ref who they determine only makes four or five errors per game is a good ref. The problem is when all those errors favour the one team, as it appears happened in this match. Still, it can happen. Usually over the course of a game they balance out, but on this occasion they didn't. It happens, but hyping it up into some deliberate act does not help.

Not to put too fine a point on it, refereeing at adult level is not a job I'd do for love nor money. We have a shortage of people willing to take it on, and yet you suggest discipining those that do for human error? Sorry, I can't have it.

[Barracuda]

Ask any referees assessor and the ref who they determine only makes four or five errors per game is a good ref. The problem is when all those errors favour the one team, as it appears happened in this match. Still, it can happen. Usually over the course of a game they balance out, but on this occasion they didn't. It happens, but hyping it up into some deliberate act does not help.

Not to put too fine a point on it, refereeing at adult level is not a job I'd do for love nor money. We have a shortage of people willing to take it on, and yet you suggest discipining those that do for human error? Sorry, I can't have it.

I agree with most of what your saying but you are also missing my point a fair bit.
What I am saying is that where a Ref makes very harsh and seemingly deliberate "Mistakes" there has to be some way of this been punished or at the very least investigated- We cant have total "Let them do as they will" or we will have no refs left- thats a joke surely. Lets see how many more "big" games yer man from that game in Casement gets in the near future- the GAA do their punishment under cover. He was not at fault for sure for the end result but his refereeing was poor.
Yes I am suggesting that the decisions were more than hairy in this instance, sorry but they were and they were very hard on the losing team. What I am saying/proposing also is that in exceptional circumstances when something like this occours the standard of refereeing should also be invistigated and if found wanting that this be made clear- thats all and noted at the very least, We cant allow a free for all to happen either guys.

We All saw it last year did we not and let any one who was at the game tell me different- Ballycumber Versus Tullamore, Ref from Edenderry, and Edenderry were not happy about the lost points affair over the Ballycumber game earlier on. A spade a spade lads Ballycumber were done out of that game clear and simple. That should not be allowed to happen
Whent his blows over- what chance has any team from Shinrone for the foreseeable future got of getting fair play- i know most will say they deserve it but thats not rite either-2 wrongs and all that........
So a little balance is needed lads- tis not all at Shinrones door.

[Barracuda]

The problem is when all those errors favour the one team, as it appears happened in this match. Still, it can happen. Usually over the course of a game they balance out, but on this occasion they didn't. It happens, but hyping it up into some deliberate act does not help.

So if you were managing a team and trained yer asses of all year and the above -just as you describe it happened- you would say- Ah it all balances out lads those 4 or five bad decisions which meant we lost our 5 point lead was all our fault.
Interesting that.

However if you did feel you were "done" surely you are entilled to question it without being afraid that if the ref was called in to explain his actions that we would have no refs left. Whats wrong with the ref accounting some times for his actions ??

[Lea-Bally-man]

I know it’s beside the point but how badly injured was Mick Mahon by the assault?

[Lone Shark]

You seem to be wishing for some sort of game where luck plays no part. Referee error is as much a part of the game as the ball hitting the post and deflecting wide as opposed to over the bar, or a great block from a corner back that bounces into the full forward instead of out for a sideline - management have to deal with this stuff all the time, and until we decide to make refereeing a full time job with huge salaries to justify the very fittest and sharpest people, refereeing error is as much a part of the game as any of that. The fact is that some days these little 50/50 things will mean a lot more than others.

The ref does account for their actions, but they account for them internally to referees assessors, not in full glare of the public where the upshot would be that half the trophies won would have an asterisk beside them because of some dodgy decision somewhere along the line.

The human nature aspect of it that you point out is legitimate, and is an unfortunate side effect of clubs and counties fighting their corner aggressively in the committee room as has become the modus operandi in recent years. I've no doubt Shinrone will get a few hardline refs on their case over the next few years, and if Shinrone management have any sense they'll be preparing their teams to deal with that.