Call for change in a referee's workload

Gaelic Games Dublin convention: Dublin County Board secretary John Costello has called for time-keeping responsibilities to be handed to the fourth official and for a "penalty points" system to be introduced for serial yellow-card offenders.

In his report to the Dublin board's convention, which takes place on Wednesday December 14th, Costello said: "The real time administration a match referee has to carry out during a game is demanding and offloading the responsibility of time-keeping to the fourth official, including that of injury-time, should aid the match referee in his duties."

Regarding discipline, he alluded to a "blame game" that existed over the sinbin experiment during the national leagues. "However, the issue needs to be addressed again with consideration given to a 'penalty points' table - ie. that serial yellow-card offenders are penalised. Players should not go unpunished if they are regularly getting yellow cards from referees."

The convention also sees John Bailey's second five-year term as county chairman come to its natural conclusion. However, Bailey has been nominated to replace Gerry Harrington as vice-chairman as Harrington is running for chairman against Michael Kennedy and Christy Kane.

Bailey is also nominated to be Dublin's Central Council representative against Gerry Brady, who was voted into the position ahead of him in 2004.

UCD's participation in the hurling championship was also addressed in the Costello report. He stated if any clubs were dissatisfied with the current scenario then they should table a motion to convention.

"If we are serious about the development of hurling at senior level then surely the clubs should not have needed external forces to light the litmus paper - the clubs should have tabled motions to convention. The fact that several clubs did not even know when the last date for submission of motions to convention was, tells its own tale. Surely all computers in the county were hardly broken! The arguments have been debated widely in the media and it is up to the delegates to discuss the issue in the appropriate forum - county convention or county committee."

The mid-October deadline for a motion to be tabled for next week's convention caught many clubs unawares. St Joseph's/OCB have since tabled a motion on the issue for next month's county committee meeting.

On the intercounty hurling front, Costello defended the decision to prematurely end Humphrey Kelleher's reign as hurling manager. "However, we felt that it was a difficult decision we had to make in order to preserve Dublin's status in tier-one of the championship."

"Allegations that the county board did not invest sufficient resources into the team and backroom staff are simply untrue and on paper the right structures looked to be in place."

Costello also criticised the "deliberate intent" of Australian players during the International Rules series and called for referees to train with opposing camps to stamp out the allegations of bias.

Meanwhile, TG4 will televise Sunday's Munster club football final between Nemo Rangers and St Senan's, Kilkee, live from the Gaelic Grounds from 1.45pm.

In Limerick, with team expenses running at an all-time-high €750,000 in 2005, the Limerick County Board are to implement cost-cutting measures.

The board showed an overall loss of €140,000 and the cost-cutting exercises include payment of mileage only to all selected/elected personnel up to senior level and greater control of county teams' training and of personnel involved with the various teams.

Costello Views

Time-keeping to be handed to fourth official

Penalty points for regular yellow-card offenders

International Rules referees to train with opposing camps