Whelan: Time to have 'real' refs umpire biggest games
The prospect of a GAA version of VAR reared its head again this weekend after some controversial decisions in the All-Ireland semi-final clash between old rivals Dublin and Kerry seemed to sway the tie in the Kingdom's favour.
Three key calls throughout a typically pulsating 70 minutes between the game's oldest foes all fell the way of the reigning champions as they ran out 2-18 to 0-20 winners at Croke Park to book their place in the final against Mayo.
Both of Kerry's goals on the day had questions marks about their validity.
First, an early penalty - converted on the rebound by David Clifford - appeared to be harshly awarded against Dublin midfielder Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne after a tackle on Kerry forward Joe O'Connor.
In the second half, Dylan Geaney's dropping point attempt was palmed to the net by Seán O'Brien. Replays clearly showed the Beaufort man in the square when the ball was kicked - and still there when Geaney's shot landed in the area.
Added to that, with Kerry leading by five in the second period, Dublin substitute Ross McGarry's shot was deflected towards the Kerry goal and looked to have crossed the line before rebounding to safety.
If the penalty call (above) and the 'goal that wasn't' could be fairly categorised as 'marginal', the missed square ball seemed more of a blatant error.
Dublin manager Ger Brennan added his voice to the chorus of calls for added use of technology in Gaelic games.
Speaking on The Sunday Game, former Mayo star Cora Staunton, ex-Dublin ace Ciarán Whelan and current Armagh forward Rory Grugan dissected the supposed errors and suggested that enhanced use of video technology can help.
As Staunton points out, in ladies football, the use of a score assist technology has been in place since 2017.
"In ladies’ football, they have a score-assist system where you can go to the truck, there’s 30 seconds to decide whether or not it was a score – and they’ve been doing that since 2017. Something like that needs to be brought in – they’re crucial calls," Staunton said.
Orchard star Grugan agreed and suggested players deserve more than to have so many key decisions partly left to chance.
"So much goes into it, you’re talking nine, ten months of preparation and you just want these calls to be fair and equal and you can see from Dublin’s perspective how frustrated they’d be," Grugan said.
"It poses a big debate. You see it at the World Cup at the minute, with VAR, it’s hard to know whether you want to bring it in, but when you have a system like what Cora’s talking about, you can see why that could solve that issue quite quickly.
"But it’s hard to get over the human error of watching that umpire on the left hand side, he gets himself into a great position to see the actual goalline. To not give the goal was a tough call on the Dubs."
Raheny clubman Whelan highlighted the obvious issue of using technology to decide the fate of debateable point attempts - but no such system to help with deciding the award of a three-point score.
"We have HawkEye to decide if it’s a point or not, but we’ve nothing to decide if a ball is over the line or not," Whelan said.
"That’s a no-brainer. As Rory said, so much goes into it, there should be something there – goalline technology.
"VAR is a broader conversation, we don’t want to be coming back for every foul – that’s disruptive – but it can be brought in for certain aspects."
Whelan then suggested that the current system of selecting umpires may no longer be fit for purpose when it comes to the biggest games of the season.
The former midfielder reckons by the time our biggest competitions have reached the final four, our most experienced officials should be utilised throughout the playing field.
"It’s challenging for one referee to referee a game, he has to rely on his umpires and his linesmen," Whelan added.
"When you’ve seven or eight games a weekend, it’s not possible to have referees in [as umpires], but when you get to semi-final stage, it’s hugely important.
"When we get to semi-final stage, we probably should have referees on the posts. Particularly that square ball. The square ball is a bit of a bugbear, because midfielders are going in there, they are disruptive, they are in there for a reason, to try and put the goalkeeper off.
"[O'Brien was] blatantly in the square and the momentum shift changed the match."
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