MALACHY O’Rourke may be a member of the Football Review committee himself but he acknowledges that it’s a case of ‘progress, not perfection’ as regards the new rules.
The low-scoring nature of his Tyrone team’s defeat in Mayo – 0-12 to 0-10 - was one disappointment, but he also accepted there were several other wrinkles to iron out.
O’Rourke feels there are many fouls being committed at midfield as players await long kick-outs, pointing to the treatment he perceived his captain Brian Kennedy receiving against Mayo: “There seems to be a lot of fouling going on out there before the ball ever comes at all.”
Another unintended consequence was exhibited when Mayo had wing-forward Conor Reid black-carded late in the first half.
The game was even stopped, wrongly, by referee Barry Cassidy when Tyrone appealed for a breach by their opponents, who only had two defenders back, not three – but that is allowed when a team has had a player sin-binned.
“Yeah, you could argue that [is unfair], said O’Rourke. “You were thinking that the black card would give us an advantage and it didn’t really.
“There’s a number of different things that come up now and maybe they’re not working as was intended. But again, I keep going back to the same thing: I suppose you just have to give these things time.
“I think the referees are even trying to get used to the rules, so there is a lot of frustration. Nobody at times is sure what’s going on.”
“Hopefully, it will over the next few weeks become a bit clearer, but that is definitely one concern you’d have coming out of the game.”
Mayo manager Kevin McStay had sympathy for the referee in that instance, commenting: “The black card didn’t help it because people then forgot that you could go to two. I think Barry might have forgotten that at one moment as well. But in fairness, he stopped the play and talked it through, and we got the right decision, and I think we got caught once as well.
“But there’s nothing about the rules that are second nature. Like, we’ve all been reared doing things a certain way, for 40 years maybe. But these rules are well-intentioned, they’re working pretty well.”
