Town hall debate mentality still prevalent

On Gaelic Games:With a forbidding 123 motions down for discussion over about six hours, it's going to be a hard slog in Co Down, writes SEAN MORAN

IT’S THAT time of the year again. On Friday, delegates will converge on the Slieve Donard hotel in Newcastle, Co Down for the GAA’s annual congress. Every year there are grumbles about the usefulness of the event as an exercise in policy formation. Every year there are near-death experiences, as that post-lunch, mid-debate torpor presses down like an assassin’s pillow on a slumbering victim.

The 2010 version is going to be particularly hard going for all present, particularly if socialising habits on Friday night run to form, as the Saturday clár is to due to start an hour earlier than normal, at 9am.

This being a year divisible by five, we will have a hefty 49-motion package of playing rules experiments to be deliberated as part of a forbidding 123 motions down for discussion over about six hours, which comes in at an average of just under three minutes per motion – good going when there is a time limit of three minutes per contributor as well as five minutes for the proposer.

Now, obviously, some will be taken together and others ruled out of order plus the usual few getting referred back, but it’s hardly mean-minded to suspect that there won’t be much ‘thrashing out’ of the listed agenda.

The more obvious criticisms of congress as too unwieldy to make decisions at anything like the rate an organisation like the GAA needs to, have been well made at this stage.

But there is also a Sisyphean inevitability about so much of what takes place. One aspect of congress that has become obvious in recent years is the mulish reluctance of many to accept considered advice and recommendation from committees and work groups of specialists, who have given up their time voluntarily to formulate proposals that address matters of growing concern.

It’s like – and in the case of the burn-out proposals actually was – getting a diagnosis from a medical consultant and allowing a town hall debate on the prescribed treatment.

In relation to the playing rules experiments, there is no continuity. Just because these trials can take place only once every five years shouldn’t mean that the rules can’t be monitored and assessed on an ongoing basis.

The Strategic Review Committee report of 2002 proposed that more use should be made of standing committees rather than the current network of bodies that change completely with each presidency, rewarding supporters – some of whom are of high calibre and others of whom aren’t – of the successful candidates.

Playing rule changes are generally debated in a negative atmosphere with the agenda driven by team managers, suspicious of any change. The current proposal on the hand-pass is a good example. The frequent penalising of breaches during the league has frustrated everyone, but that hasn’t solved the problem the experiment was trying to address: the fact that under the old rules it had become impossible to distinguish between a hand-pass and a throw.

Arguments that the stricter provision slows down the game are irrelevant; you might as well allow throwing, which would speed up the games even more.

The most reliable antidote to conservatism is, of course, perceived self-interest. Motion 42 from Tipperary proposes the addition of two video referees to the current list of match officials for senior inter-county championship matches.

This arises after the county suffered the trauma of some poor refereeing decisions in last year’s All-Ireland hurling final. The proposed scope of this is certainly sweeping, providing that a referee consult “ . . . with the umpires, and/or linesmen and/or video referees concerning infringements of the playing rules, in particular rough or dangerous play, striking hitting or kicking. The referee may apply the appropriate rule following such consultations.”

This is unlikely to succeed as it proposes a role for video referees more expansive than

in any other sport and could double the length of a fractious match. The zeal for rules enforcement is, however, welcome, but comes unfortunately a year too late.

Twelve months ago Tipperary opposed last congress’ disciplinary reforms, which provided a credible response to the increasing problem of indiscipline and cynical play, and in so doing sank the otherwise well-supported proposals, which with the county’s support would have secured the required two-thirds majority and which would have been a more obvious way of dealing with indiscipline.

Finally, the Longford motion on abolishing the referral back to referees by the Central Competition Control Committee has already been dealt with at greater length, but will have the fervent support of the CCCC, even though Croke Park aren’t meant to involve themselves in motions put forward by clubs.

Not the least of the benefits of accepting the Longford motion, framed by Legan Sarsfields club man and former inter-county referee John Bannon, is that it would do away with one of the main causes of the bane of the disciplinary system, inconsistency.

There has been much complaining from those counties penalised by video review of fouls that not all infractions are treated similarly and although inconsistency of enforcement is not an adequate defence it’s easy to understand the frustration.

One of the big problems in this is that some referees, on a point of principle or for whatever reason, refuse to take the correct action when asked to review plainly wrong decisions and this ties the hands of the committee.

The fracas in last month’s Cork-Kilkenny NHL match is a case in point. Asked to review his decisions, referee Dickie Murphy declined leaving the CCCC exposed to the charges of inconsistency and applying different standards to football than to hurling.

But, by rights, Murphy shouldn’t have been in this situation. The authority to review and over-rule overly-lenient decisions on foul play was established 10 years ago by the then GAC and endorsed in 2002 by Central Council, but depending on the rigour of the committees involved it was inconsistently used over the years.

The current system of requiring match officials to review their mistakes had something of the show-trial about it and not all referees were comfortable with it and their power to prevent correct suspensions being imposed has created havoc.

It would be a good idea if the CCCC were handed back this power and judged on its own effectiveness in tackling indiscipline rather than on the whims of irresolute referees.