GAA confirm competency of Hawk-Eye’s score detection system

The GAA have confirmed that there is no uncertainty about Hawk-Eye’s ability to determine whether a ball has crossed the bar, as well as whether it has passed between the goalposts.

There has been much comment about the decision of the score detection system to allow Kilkenny’s John Donnelly a point in the 19th minute of Sunday’s All-Ireland final after Tipperary goalkeeper Brian Hogan had apparently caught the ball above the bar, preventing the score.

Donnelly’s shot was caught with 17.48 on the clock but 18 seconds later, referee James Owens whistled and signalled for a review after being alerted to the situation by Dickie Murphy, the Hawk-Eye official on duty. The score was then awarded.

It was the second time in successive matches that Hogan has been caught for a score after appearing to have caught the ball as it was going over the bar.

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Bernard Smith, the GAA’s national fixtures and project administrator, explained the procedure.

“From day one the system was designed to track the ball in the area over the bar and between the posts. It doesn’t operate in relation to goals below the bar. There are a series of nine cameras positioned at either end of the ground – an extra one at the Davin goal because the light is poorer there and the background crowd is bigger.”

Protocols surrounding the determination are slightly different in that officials don’t call for Hawk-Eye intervention in situations like Sunday’s but leave it to the score detection system.

If the umpires award a point that hasn’t crossed the bar, Hawk-Eye will contact the referee and annul the score. In those cases, as there is no resulting puck-out, the match must re-start with a throw-in in the middle, as at the start of the match, and all players lined up 15-on-15.