GAELIC SPORTS WORLD Issue 2 Sample Test, June 5, 2014 | Page 16

Making the Call
By Tommy Moran
Making the call is the referee’s job. The buck
stops with him. Hawkeye might give him a
hand now and again, but it will be a while
before this all-seeing gadgetry makes its way
around the provinces. So, despite the umpires
and linesmen, the fourth official, the television
cameras and their zoom lenses, the thousands
of supporters, the overflowing press boxes, the
pundits and the experts, it’s all down to the ref.
He is master of all he surveys.
Thus the need for him to be sure he is getting his calls right. Most of the time he does,
but one blip and he’s in bother. There could be
over forty frees awarded; penalties given; scores
disallowed and linesmen overruled; with the
ref making what he feels is the right call every
time. Well, almost all the time, because he is not
infallible. But in any game it is the one or two
things that he might get wrong that will have
him remembered for generations.
Recent years have seen a real upsurge in the
method of recruiting and especially in the
training of referees. Nothing is