DAVID COLDRICK ADMITS he abuse he receives as a referee has lessened as he became more experienced, but it’s the newer whistlers that tend to receive the brunt of it.
The inter-county referee said he was in his early 20s when an incident took place in a Meath club game where he received verbal abuse that made him seriously think “about refereeing and whether it was for me.”
But in recent years, social media scrutiny has increased. Coldrick was caught in the eye of the storm during the summer after the Galway-Armagh All-Ireland quarter-final.
He sent-off Sean Kelly and Aidan Nugent at the start of extra-time, while an eye gouge by a non-playing member of the Armagh squad went unpunished.
“At national level, we’ve all experienced that kind of thing,” he says of the criticism after that game.
“That game obviously had it all. It had the good, the bad and the ugly. And you don’t just like switch off, you don’t. You do have the day job on the Monday, but it’s in your head for a couple of days afterwards. For me, I’m not on social media.
“Others obviously are and that’s, that’s absolutely fine. The mental piece is something that has become probably a bigger thing over the last number of years, probably with the increased attention.
“But we do have some supports in place, let’s say in terms of, a psychologist, that’s helping us at national level.”
Speaking at the launch of the GAA’s Referees Respect Day, Coldrick recalled a time when he seriously considering giving up refereeing.
“It was maybe five years after starting refereeing and I was doing a senior derby match in Meath between Navan O’Mahonys and Simonstown. It was a tight game.
“It was decided by a quite late penalty, so in the aftermath of that, there was a lot of verbal abuse, not physical abuse. But that’s certainly made me think about refereeing and whether it was for me.
“Ultimately, I suppose at that stage, I personally had a good support network. Then there were others in Leinster that I would have spoken to that kind of got me past that. But it certainly was the closest I came to quitting from a refereeing perspective.”
As he gets older, the Meath native feel the abuse has lessened.
“I would have found that for whatever reason the fact that I am more experienced and have the years behind me, it’s not that I don’t get abuse, but I don’t tend to get as much abuse. Like what those new referees get in the first couple of years. What I would have gotten in the first couple of years, that has definitely got less.
“It’s not to say that it’s it’s non existent, it is there, but it’s not as much as from my early years in refereeing.”
He believes clubs shout take responsibility for abuse directed by their members at officials.
“I think in some ways, it’s easy to have ‘Give Respect, Get Respect’ on your shoulder. Okay, that’s all you just need to see it there, but I do think that the sanctions piece, I think that there are certain rules that at juvenile level would actually help the young referees coming up. The guys that are actually within that two-to-three-year zone of ‘like, am I going to keep this going?’
“I think it is partly sanctions but it’s not just sanctions for the individual, I think it’s trying to broaden out the responsibility on clubs and the accountability on clubs.
“Yes, the individual needs to take responsibility, but I know of instances where an individual mentor at a juvenile level is suspended, and the club is fined. But actually the fine is paid by the individual. So therefore the club doesn’t really have to take responsibility.
“He goes out and he does it again, which, in one particular instance I know did happen. He got a longer ban, he got a 48-week ban. He still paid the fine himself and the following week that juvenile team are in a county final and he turned up, and he started again.”
Didn’t Donegal play Tyrone in the first round? And Dublin will play Kildare in the next round, as will Cork and Kerry, and it’s not the GAAs fault that Galway have melted into a shambles. We would then have had Mayo v Galway too in the first round. All of this before the end of June. Then you have the real payoff, the excitement of seeing the very best teams against each other in August and September, the way any worthy competition should be. The GAA has plenty of flaws but I think this article is a very unfocused knee-jerk reaction to a few hidings dished out by teams on top of their game.
Dave agree entirely
A Dubs fan
Lot of people talking about Mayo this year but where have we heard that before
Wouldn’t write off Kerry either S a lot of people seem to be doing
I’m a Dubs man meself Declan. I think this Mayo team is a different proposition from previous years, there’s a hard edge to them which I think makes them serious contenders.
I think Dublin, Donegal, Cork and Mayo are all around the same level (one from each province too, which is nice) then there’s Tyrone, Kerry and Kildare a level just below that. 7 realistic contenders for the All Ireland, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yes agree 7 teams with varying degrees of optimism
If they had that in the premiership they would be laughing!!
Mayo have new fitness coach so let’s see
A dubs fan passing a comment about another team being over hyped early in the year.. Oh the irony!
San Marino get hammered every time they play but you don’t see fifa changing around the format of the European/world cup qualifiers so they can win a few games
If counties are not up to the standard why should the gaa change around the format to try and suit them, the football championship is very strong and some teams will get left behind
They change the format every few tournaments! And they do it to allow a more desirable geographic spread off WC finals competitors
The fact that there are eight competitive teams places the Gaa in an enviable position . It can’t be said of other codes. How many EPL winners have there been since its inception . The GAA championship compares very Favourably. It’s not long since Dublin and Donegal were on the wrong end of a few such drubbings . In 2011 London almost beat mayo who then made an all Ireland semi final , beating the all Ireland champions en route. Louth contested a Leinster final . Wexford likewise on a couple of occasions. Similar knee jerk reaction were pedalled out in 2010 when none of the provincial finalists reached the semi finals . September is the time to make a more considered judgment
GAA is fine as is.
If other counties want to perform they can pay for more training sessions and try and get more people to come to the matches.
I agree in part. But I don’t think it means we need to rearrange the format of the championship. Every time a team gets hammered some people talk about the need to level the playing field. The system is fine. It has been changed once, with the back door, if they change it again like they did with the league over and over again people will lose interest.
We had years of Galway hurling people blaming the structure of the championship for them not winning, now it’s the championship structures that Galway footballers are rubbish,
Derry were not well beaten, in fact they played some of the best football of the championship to date in the best game to date. Diagonal balls to Bradley and his destruction of Down defense in first half was a joy to watch.
Westmeath got a day out in croker they saw the level they need to aspire too its all a learning curve / and that’s always the way it’s been how else are you going to improve
The money and the people involved with the Dublin team vs small counties like w.meath is very unfair.Maybe a large populace county like Dublin should field two teams a city and county team.
As Kerry do each year and how All Ireland’s have they won with a small population
The whole thing is a farce lets do away with the provincials 8 groups of 4 top 2 into the the A final bottom 2 to a B Final and in the last 16 -an open draw when your out you are out at least the teams in the final get to play the same amount of games.
Yeah, everyone would get three games and the eventual finalists would get 7. Seems fair
I wouldn’t do an open draw for the last 16 though. I’d run it like a Heineken Cup. The best performing team plays worst and so forth, to reward consistent good play
The championship is fine the way it is. They should give division 3 and 4 teams home advantage when playing division 1 teams.
The championship format is fairly rubbish to be honest. It’s not fair in my opinion to the Ulster teams especially. The Connaught and Munster Championships and somewhat Leinster are absolute dire. They should have a Champions League style format of 8 groups of 4 teams and the top 2 from each group enter the Last 16 of the All Ireland with the top from each group playing a 2nd placed team. The groups would also be seeded from their National League position meaning all Division 1 teams would be in a separate group and so on. At least every team would get 3 Championship games, the prospect of an open draw would also do much to enhance the game….and I’m not from Ulster!
I don’t see how ulster is any better. Donegal are near certainties for ulster this year and that will be 3 in a row and before them Tyrone and Armagh shared it for the previous ten years.
Leinster and ulster have to win more games to win an all Ireland however which is definitely unfair.
Kerry and cork basically don’t have to do anything until August because the rest of Munster are light years behind them. This is extremely unfair on the rest and plays a large part in Kerry’s success in my opinion despite their producing some excellent teams.
Some people suggest that it’s better for Kerry/Cork to take the back door route as they get more competitive games. As it is they get to play Each other in their only tough match before Aug and arrive untested into the Knockout stages.
These two scenarios get played out whenever Kerry/cork reach the QF and either win easily or lose comfortably.
If they get to QF by winning munster and win easily its cos they are fresh from easy matches. If they lose its cos they are untested.
For decades ulster was the weakest province, now it’s the most competitive. Why, they work hard but helped as all the counties place football number one. In Munster only Kerry place football 1, all the others are hurling or 50/50 in corks case. Munster will never have 6 strong teams
Maybe picky, but Derry WERE Division 2 and Down WERE Division 1, but Derry got promoted, Down got relegated, so division 2 team beat division 1 team.
(Best game if championship so far – great advert for GAA)