PETER CANAVAN’S MISGIVINGS about the black card came to the fore on Sunday in Omagh.
The Tyrone legend believes his county’s draw with Down provided the proof that the new rule is ‘making the job of the referee more difficult’.
There was controversy over the manner in which David Coldrick cautioned Tyrone’s Niall Morgan for a foul on Jerome Johnston in the second-half but did not penalise Down’s Conor Maginn for a similar offence in the first-half.
“I was sceptical about the black card from the start because I felt it was making the job of the referee more difficult. Referees don’t need that at the minute and that’s the perfect example.
“(It’s) not often I disagree with Mickey and I would have to agree with him this time. I have no qualms about Niall Morgans’ black card. There are two things about Tyrone’s first goal – where was the advantage rule and if it was a deliberate pull down, then it should have been a black card.
“It was something the referee missed and if Tyrone had lost that game there is no question it would have had a major bearing especially because Conor Maginn had a big infleunce on the game after that. I have no doubt there will be a lot of controversial and similar incidents to that.”
The fact that the game concluded in a draw did help to alleviate the fallout.
“It was the first high profile game of the year and they put out the best man (David Coldrick) that they had in the hope it would pass without major controversy,” said Canavan.
“The fact it was a draw has maybe – not saved his skin – but deflected from that a wee bit. I have no doubt there would have been more uproar about it had Tyrone lost that game yesterday. Dave Coldrick was the man they put up to talk about these rules but it is going to be difficult to implement them.
“This is a high profile game. You can imagine in club games there are a lot of referees who don’t believe in the idea of the black card to begin with. I know some referees have claimed they don’t even bring a black card with them.
“The black card you need it to be consistent and apoplied to the letter of the law at county games and already we have seen that is not the case.”
Let the black card witch-hunt begin. Lead by the masters of cynical play Tyrone, big surprise!
Donegal not happy with it neither that’s their game plan out the window
Dublin won an All Ireland with it, Mayo did it to them the year before. Nobody is innocent here, Harte’s Tyrone got 3 All Irelands by playing in the rules of the game it’s up to the rest to put it up to them as all teams play with the same rules.
are you saying dublin won a championship with cynical play?
No, I’m saying Dublin played by the rules of the sport to win, Mayo did the same to get to two All Irelands and Tyrone did it to tie for Team of the Decade. You play to win or you don’t want it badly enough Paul.
I think the black card will effect Donegal and Tyrone more beacuse they play on the edge I dont agree with the blackcard anyway as if a incident is bad enough to send a player off its a redcard
Still think, given time, it will be positive. There’ll always be mistakes made, but you can see that body checking the third man runner has already been stamped out.
It was a poor decision from Goldrick, no getting away from it.
Coldrick made a mistake – get over it! The black card is a great idea for the first 65 minutes of a match – teams will still do what it takes to get a win so I can still see lads getting dragged down, etc. Being able to replace only the first 3 black cards helps in this regard.
You shouldn’t be able to replace a black carded player in the last 5 mins.
Yeah 2 people who argued against it before it was introduced saying the same thing after it has led to confusion.. can’t wait until further controversies effect your own teams and we then have you all backing the black card and not being critical of officials or rules at all as its only a tyrone and donegal thing obviously. ..
First Mickey heart, now Peter Canavan.
they see the writing on the wall daragh the two blackcards should have been redcards