Brennan is on the right track over referee abuse

On GAA: It's been a busy few days on the hurling front. Sunday in Thurles wasn't exactly a foretaste of the summer with a misty drizzle draping itself over much of the National Hurling League final but it was the last rite of spring - to quote Churchill in a hurling context, not so much the beginning of the end as the end of the beginning, writes Seán Moran.

Kilkenny's win was routine and businesslike. Limerick did enough not to disrupt their enhanced self-image after a hitherto unbeaten run this year.

Earlier Dublin did what they needed to do to regain top-level status and even if it takes a while to slough off the more ponderous habits of Division Two hurling, at least that represents progress.

On the bank holiday Dublin had even more to celebrate with the amalgamated colleges selection taking the Croke Cup back to the city for the first time after a deserved win over the hothouse Clare hurling nursery St Flannan's.

Yet buried among all of these significant events, was something of potentially great importance. It didn't altogether escape public notice but the implications weren't dwelled on.

Put starkly, a great GAA institution may have had its day. It could be last Sunday was the final sighting before extinction of the frequently spotted managerial grouse. GAA president Nickey Brennan in his inaugural speech to congress announced a ruthless extermination order on this hitherto abundant species, native to our shores and to be found in corridors outside dressingrooms the country over.

"Sadly we still have instances of unacceptable behaviour in our games and it is high time that the punishment fitted the crime," Brennan told his audience in Killarney. "At the heart of much of our disciplinary problems is a clear lack of respect for our referees. This must be eradicated from our games, and any player, team mentor or official who publicly criticises a referee after a game in future can expect to be called in to account for their actions."

For those of us in the media this represents a shocking turn of events. Nothing calms the tumult outside of a dressingroom like the swift realisation some manager - and not always a defeated one - is about to bad-mouth the referee.

It's the part thrust upon us by fate, an inescapable destiny. Yes, clattering out another denunciation of some unfortunate match official doesn't do much for the disciplinary environment but that's not really our job. We're just bringing the word as it's given, nothing added - apart from a smart aside or two - and nothing taken away.

It was something of a surprise Limerick manager Joe McKenna should reveal himself as a grouse after the league final. At the end of a much-improved campaign, unbeaten until Sunday, there were surely more positive contemplations. He did commend his team's courage and commitment but his most urgent instinct was to have a cut at referee Diarmuid Kirwan.

"Decisions by the referee were awful. You know, you train for nine months. All we want is fair play and I don't think we got it today. I don't think any Limerick person thinks we got it today and I make no bones about it. We're coming here playing against Tipperary in two weeks' time. We just need someone in the middle who's fair on Tipperary and fair on us. That's all we ask for, nothing more."

The burden of the complaint was that Martin Comerford had deliberately dropped his hurl in the lead-up to the third Kilkenny goal. "The man dropped his hurley," said McKenna. "That's a free out. That was the goal that turned the whole game. In the first half he gave six frees in a row to Kilkenny and any frees we got were in our own full-back line."

Then almost as if remembering himself, McKenna lets it go. "Saying all that, fair dues to Kilkenny. They're a very, very strong side and they're rebuilding too."

Video replay of the incident appears to contradict the complaint. After a collision with a Limerick player, Brian Geary, Comerford maintains his run but loses his stick and even turns around in an apparently involuntary movement as it falls from his grasp before playing the hand pass. It's hard to imagine any neutral seriously believing the referee had a decisive impact on Limerick's defeat. Anyway the rights and wrongs of individual incidents won't matter from this weekend on.

Through the National Referees' Committee liaison, managers have been warned criticism of match officials will be stringently dealt with under Rule 144 or "discrediting the association", the offence, or infraction as it is now to be called, that was used in the case of the Dublin and Tyrone players after last February's National Football League match in Omagh.

Brennan did, however, propose an alternative means of conveying displeasure with a refereeing performance.

"Team managers will be afforded an opportunity after each game to give their views on the referee to the Referee Monitor, and these comments will be taken into account when the performance of the referee is being analysed at a later stage."

Monitors will be available in the dressingroom area after the match so managers can have an input into the report on the performance of the match officials. Assuming this becomes the norm in the championship ahead it will do the disciplinary cause a great benefit. Brennan was right to identify disrespect for match officials as a serious, integral issue in the whole matter.

A frequent source of hand wringing within Gaelic games is the authority rugby referees enjoy compared to their football and hurling counterparts. Some of that is down to less ambiguous rules but a good deal is received culture and the way you impose culture in this sort of matter is by punishing those who step out of line.

In a way it's unfair to highlight Joe McKenna. He was hardly the first manager to let loose at the referee after a tense match, and the way things are, it would be naive to think he'll be the last. But the hope is that he'll be one of the last.