Kieran Hughes has sympathy for the referee.
Kieran Hughes will tell you himself exactly what he did and he’ll tell you he did it to lay down a marker that he won’t be taking any more cheap shots.
But Kieran Hughes would much rather have played more than seven minutes of Monaghan’s Ulster championship clash with Fermanagh at the weekend than have to ‘own up’ to something so immaterial that it’s verging on depressing.
By the letter of the law, he tripped an opponent so he should be black-carded. But the law is stupid. Completely and utterly stupid.
It wasn’t cynical, it wasn’t ‘professional’, it was in no way the sort of flashpoint that the black card was brought in to deal with but the rule book dictated that his game should be over for reacting to being pushed to the ground off the ball with a trip to the ground. If that happens on another day, the consequence could be devastating for the Farney county.
“It was my first ever black card. I got away alright without any cards in the league and then, bang, black card flashed after seven minutes for something that’s just ridiculous,” Hughes explained in a superb interview on The GAA Hour.
“You train like a dog all year, you do all the travelling and all these things and then, all of a sudden, in the biggest game at the start of the championship, you’re off and you’re just looking at the rest of the boys playing and trampling around the field for the rest of the game – there’s no other way to explain it other than very frustrating.
“I do feel for the referee, there’s no doubt about that. They have so many other things to be looking at all over the field and to keep an eye on. For them to be having to flash a card for something like that, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
It’s a natural reaction: you get pushed to the ground, you want to make sure someone comes with you.
You also want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. These battles are going on all over the field, all over the country, every single weekend. Kieran Hughes just took the unnecessary consequences on Sunday.
“I remember, at the time, I had chipped the ball off to Vinny Corey and the ball was gone about a second or two and I just remember feeling contact – or a fist – in my ribs,” he said.
“I went to the ground and I tried to grab the fella to more or less say, ‘that’ll be the last time’. My arm was on the ground and he tripped over it. The ref didn’t see this but I looked up and just saw the linesman and the crowd behind him were roaring and shouting.
“I initially presumed that the ref was just going to come over, throw the ball up and say, ‘right, boys, enough of your messing. Away on with your business’ and, bang, flash, card and away I went, running into the dressing room like a lunatic.
“My head was fried.”
What’s worse is that this rule is going to continually have a negative effect on Gaelic Football – from the pitch to the TV studios.
“This card shouldn’t be shown for something like that,” Hughes said.
“I come back out of the dressing room 15 minutes later and I’m seeing stuff that’s unfolding on the field that’s 10 times worse and nothing being done about it.
“It’s not just me. It’s going to happen again next weekend and the weekend after it and the year ahead.
“You have the like of Gooch and these boys on The Sunday Game – it’s deadly to see them – but they’re going to be talking about black card incidents all year. You don’t want. You want them dissecting the game, talking about tactics and the skill of the game, not wasting our time talking about a card that should be completely irrelevant in the GAA.”
Listen to the whole interview below from 12:45. It is definitely worth it.
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