RORY McILROY WAS pleased to be proved wrong by the success of the golf tournament at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The world number five was one of a host of players to opt out of Rio 2016 over health concerns related to the Zika virus and McIlroy stated he may not even watch the tournament prior to the Games.
Golf proved to be a huge success in Brazil, though, with Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson battling it out on the final round for the gold medal, with their tussle going down to the very last hole.
Rose ultimately prevailed for Great Britain and McIlroy revealed he had seen the conclusion to the competition and was pleasantly surprised by the reception golf received.
“It was nice to be proven wrong,” the Northern Irishman said ahead of the start of the FedEx Cup play-offs at The Barclays.
“I thought golf was going to get lost a little bit. It was away from the Olympic village, I thought it was going to be blended in with everything else and be — not forgotten about — but just one of a lot of sports.
“To see the turnout and crowd I was glad to be proven wrong.”
Love to hear your view Anthony on the hammering Gearoid Hegarty took in that solo run to edge of the Clare square. He is not given advantage and is then yellow carded! Unbelievable
@Stephen O Byrnes: Hegarty took over 10 steps, ref couldn’t allow the advantage. Should never have been a yellow card for Hegarty though
I go to way too many matches, hurling, camogie, adult and juvenile and I have to admit that a lot of the time I find it bewildering as to how one person can referee these matches.
Even at u14 camogie you’ll have girls who can switch the play from their own 45 to the other in one puck meaning that the ref has to suddenly get towards the other end of the field in a matter of seconds. (Granted at that level the refs aren’t always the fittest and tend to go from 45 to 45 anyway.)
Once you get up to minor club leval hurling it is impossible to expect one person to be everywhere, see everything and make the right calls even 90% of the time.
The answer at inter county level has to be to have the ref and then have linesmen who are also refs and involed in the game (like rugby) and have umpires who are at the very least club refs / up-and-coming refs whose job is to do more than just wave a flag.
Yes, refereeing is almost impossible at this level but the referee has 4 umpires and 2 linesmen with them on the pitch. For major intercounty championship matches these should be qualified referees, 7 referees all linked up together, very little would be missed then.
Anthony ye got a half dozen soft frees in the drawn 2013 final including one against David mac who had his hand pulled on with the hurley, that was given as a 21 to cork instead of a yellow card and a free out. These things even themselves out over time. As you say move on .