Sean Hurson took charge of games in Divison One and Three of the Tyrone league days after officiating in the All-Ireland final between Armagh and Galway
A shortage of referees in Tyrone has forced administrators to seek help from outside the county.
Fermanagh referee James Lewis took charge of the Division One clash of Carrickmore and Omagh at the weekend, answering the call after an already small panel of officials was further squeezed by holiday season pressures.
A major recruitment drive in recent seasons has had some success, but has not attracted enough young whistlers to provide adequate cover for a wide-ranging programmes of club fixtures.
“We just don’t have enough. There’s lads on holidays, and we lost a couple of referees who had done a lot of games early in the year, which was a blow to us,” said county chairman Martin Sludden, who was also on duty at the double bill at Carrickmore, refereeing the reserve game.
And with the age profile of the existing referees panel increasing with every passing season, retirements are making for a constant reduction in numbers.
“The refereeing profile is getting older and older. Some of our referees are refereeing a lifetime, and nobody has come through.
“I think it was nine that did the referees course this year, but we need more.”
The past week has seen the problem accentuated, with some referees on holidays, resulting in a dilemma for the Competitions Control Committee in appointing officials to cover the entire fixtures schedule.
The issue has highlighted the urgent need for new recruits to take up the whistle, according to the county chairman, himself a former inter-county ref.
“We’re short of referees this week, but we have a heavy schedule of games.
“James has come in. He refereed a game in the Fermanagh league on Friday night, and Raymond (Monteith), the chairman of the CCC spoke to him, and James was quite willing to referee and pull us out here in Tyrone.
“James is on the inter-county panel, so he’s a very experienced Fermanagh official, and this game would be no problem to him.”
Three clubs in Tyrone have failed to fulfil their duties in providing members to join the referees panel, a deficit that Sludden wants to address.
“There’s three clubs in Tyrone that don’t have a referee. We chatted earlier in the year about deducting point from clubs, but that was shot down at the county committee.
“I think, to be fair to the clubs, they’re working hard to uncover somebody, they want to put in the right person.
“Somebody to volunteer to referee is not easy found, but it will definitely have to be looked at in the close season, because we are running a lot of development leagues at youth level – U14, U16 and U18, and that takes up a lot of extra referees as well.
“So unless somebody steps up from the clubs, the numbers are going to dwindle.”
He pointed to All-Ireland final referee Sean Hurson as a role model from whom young aspiring whistlers should take inspiration.
Three days after officiating at the Sam Maguire Cup decider between Armagh and Galway, the Galbally man refereed the Tyrone Division One clash of Edendork and Ardboe, and a few days later was the man in the middle for the Division Three meeting of Aghaloo and Drumquin.
“We have the top referee in Ireland at present – Sean Hurson from Galbally, who refereed his second All-Ireland final this year, we have Mark Loughran on the inter-county panel, we have Kieran Eannetta on the inter-county panel. So Tyrone is going well at the top level.
“Sean makes himself available, whether it be an U14 game or an U16 game or a senior game.
“And people should be looking hard at what Sean Hurson is doing. If they put in the workrate that Sean Hurson puts in, they’ll get their rewards, possibly in Croke Park.”