Time to act on discipline problems

It was something of a redemptive weekend for football. Kerry and Cork played out a weird but wonderful Munster semi-final which featured some eye-catching forward play. In Ulster, Antrim not only came close to delivering the biggest shock in living memory but did so with some fine football which served as a reminder that in the past the county was renowned for an attractive short game which was behind their most recent provincial wins in 1946 and '51.

Beneath the surface of these pleasing events lurked, unfortunately, the same old problems. There have been critical comparisons made - here and elsewhere - between the contrasting severity of suspensions for verbal abuse and punishment for violent play. Yet this should not be seen as an equivocation.

There are excellent reasons verbal abuse should be confronted and a few of them were on view last weekend. In the run-up to the Casement Park match, Derry's manager Eamonn Coleman took the opportunity to voice loudly his unhappiness at the appointment of Longford's John Bannon - a referee in whose previous handling of Derry's matches Coleman discerned a bias.

This sort of thing is insidious. Once a referee gets to hear about it, he can't avoid being affected in some way - by bending over backwards either to disprove such disparagement or to prove that he's not affected by it. There's enough pressure on referees without such outbursts in the week before a championship match. Presumably the Games Administration Committee will be dealing with this matter.

Another unacceptable piece of carry-on which will presumably cross the GAC's desk is the behaviour of Cork's football manager Larry Tompkins. The prowling up and down the sideline and interfering with play were matters which last Sunday's referee Michael Curley had to deal with on more than one occasion.

It culminated in the farce of Cork captain Philip Clifford being asked to cross the field to tell his manager that the match would be abandoned if he didn't retreat to the dugout. This isn't a new form of misbehaviour but it's one which is increasingly taking up the time of match officials who have better things to be doing. Tompkins compounded this by giving off to Curley at the break and appearing to ignore being summoned over by the referee.

Surely the time has come for the GAA to look seriously at the banning of sideline coaching. At the least, managers should be confined to a dugout zone. Leaving it should be punishable by yellow and red cards.

All of this was exacerbated by the Cork manager's post-match ranting about the first-half penalties. Few enough could say that the awards weren't definite penalties and certainly no one reasonably could say that they were definitely not penalties.

Whereas at a stretch this can be attributed to the heat generated by disappointment and emotion, the repetition of the sentiments a day later undermines the plea of mitigation.

Most people would sympathise with the view that players train very hard for the championship and that it is heartbreaking to see months of hard work go down the drain in 70 minutes. But that is at the heart of the growing disillusionment with the current championship format.

Yet when the FDC proposals were on the table with their promise of guaranteed league matches feeding into a knockout system, one of the very few intercounty football managers not in favour of the innovation was Tompkins.

He was entitled to this point of view but to blame what are in effect the inexorable effects of the knockout system on a referee who's not allowed reply or defend himself is missing the point - at best.

The enforced silence of referees after matches is a subject which rankles with them and doesn't help the overall situation. No one wants referees involved in slagging matches but some structured form of communication after matches would have its merits.

Sean Ryan, a junior hurling referee in Dublin, proposed a few years ago that team mentors write reports on refereeing performances and submit them to the relevant board. Referees would be able to respond.

Obvious exaggeration and baseless gripes on the part of losing teams would become apparent but the exercise would encourage teams to vent their unhappiness in a formal way rather than by grossly indisciplined outbursts. Equally, referees would be allowed to explain their position and the whole exercise could be conducted away from the public gaze.

So many things feed into the problem of lawlessness: the daft championship format which guarantees nearly half the counties a one-match season and accordingly magnifies the pressure of every match; the long-held and only recently-challenged acceptance that you can say what you want to match officials; the deep ambivalence with which violence is viewed, particularly when your own county is involved; a wholly inadequate suspension system which adds to rather than confronts the endemic problem of inconsistency.

For instance, it is common for referees to give yellow cards when they must know red cards are in fact the appropriate sanction. Presumably this is because they calculate the effects of flashing a red card, acknowledging even subconsciously that they could be ruling out a player for three months - particularly three championship months.

Last year's report of the GAA disciplinary sub-committee looked into and rejected the possibility of competition-specific or match-specific suspensions. This was a mistake as the events of the last week have indicated. It was announced five days ago that two players had been suspended for four weeks each in respect of sending-off offences during their first championship match over the same weekend - June 10th and 11th.

Kildare's Brian Lacey will miss Sunday's Leinster semi-final against Offaly. Meanwhile Galway half back Sean de Paor will be available for his provincial semi-final in Connacht against Sligo.

Justice? Change, of course, will come slowly.