Forwards want space. Forwards want the ball. Forwards do not want to be rolling around the grass stuck to another man.
In the aftermath of their first McKenna Cup clash with Tyrone this month, Derry’s Emmett McGuckin was at a loss to explain why he had received his marching orders from referee Ciaran Brannigan.
“I had my hands out,” he told the Irish News. “I thought the sending off was harsh. It was obvious when McCarron came out, he was there to get me sent off.”
And it worked. The Tyrone corner back came off the bench to mark the Derry forward who had already been booked. One wrestling match later and the referee did what is becoming far too common nowadays: he came down and issued both of them with a yellow card each before heading off and getting on with his own day.
Cathal McCarron of @TyroneGAALive wrestles with Emmett McGuckin in the Dr.McKenna cup match! #GAA pic.twitter.com/tmeKRjbS5G
— sportsfile (@sportsfile) January 10, 2016
That yellow card was enough to end McGuckin’s game. For McCarron, it was just an insignificant booking taken for the team. Job done.
The scariest thing isn’t even that Mickey Harte could apparently exploit a situation like that with such ease, it was McGuckin’s further comments about this culture.
“It’s part of the game. You’ve just got to live with it,” he said. “There’s not much you can do about it. Just get on with it.”
Just get on with it.
How depressing a thought is it to think that a ball-playing forward, an adventurous footballer thinks that this is just part of the game and that you have to accept it? When did we fall so far from grace and get caught up in all our manliness and suck-it-up attitude that attacking players need to take beatings on the ground as some sort of toll for playing this game?
And how far gone are we that, with those beatings, those same forwards just need to hope that they’re not punished by the law-enforcers for being on the receiving end of them?
On what planet would a full forward want to be in that situation?
His job is to score. His job is to win games. He has grown up looking to get the ball in his hands at every half opportunity and make something happen when he does get it.
It goes against everything a forward stands for and lives for to be rolling around on top of a defender on the ground when the game is still going on. Who wins in that situation? A forward’s job is to score. The defender’s job is to keep him quiet.
Even that controversial flashpoint last season between Diarmuid Connolly and Lee Keegan had omitted a key question. Why the hell were they on the ground in the first place?
It’s injury time in the All-Ireland semi-final, the teams are level, Dublin are attacking. Does the best footballer in Ireland really want to take himself out of the action when they need him most to roll around with a defender on the turf?
Diarmuid Connolly is no angel but he’s faster and stronger than most players, he’s more skillful and more accurate than almost everyone – why, oh why, would he want to be tangling up for a wrestling match? They’d tell you he reacted poorly which he did, but why is the onus on him to just accept not only being pulled and dragged but to accept being physically held out of the action at the most important stage of their season?
And why aren’t referees stamping this out when they can?
How many times last year alone was there a “coming-together” off the ball as the play went on? The replays generally showed the defender getting to grips with the forward’s run, grappling him to ground, but the aftermath was an uninterested referee stopping by on his way back out the field, brandishing yellows all round and clearing off.
Either he’s seen nothing, he’s been advised very diplomatically, or he’s just copping out himself and pretending to have some control of the matter.
The reality is though, all he has served to do is to hand the backs another piece of dangerous ammunition. Defenders and managers alike are exploiting what isn’t so much naivety but an apparent lack of fair and logical punishment – or even an interest in the justice of it all.
Two yellows, that’ll do the trick.
Tactics, conditioning, physicality already gives defenders an advantage in these sports. They don’t need the extra help of referees falling for their tricks.
Forwards don’t need to be wrestling on the ground and the game of football, especially, definitely does not need them being punished for it.
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