Jamesie O'Connor: Hurling's epic drama, Wexford's next step and referee debate
Monday 29 July 2019 17:24, UK
Sky Sports analyst Jamesie O'Connor reacts to what was a pulsating weekend of hurling action at Croke Park.
What a weekend. What a crescendo to the hurling season!
Perhaps the summer disappointed in Munster for spells, but wow, it came alive in the two All-Ireland semi-finals.
It's great that hurling is on the front pages of the newspapers, on the radio stations, leading television news reports. We got entertainment and drama in Croke Park that very few sports can give you like hurling.
Wexford come close
I came down under the tunnel of the Hogan Stand on Sunday evening. Paul Morris, Diarmuid O'Keeffe and Lee Chin were coming out at different stages. They looked absolutely emptied. Physically, they had left everything on the pitch. Emotionally, they just looked devastated and drained. Your heart went out to them.
I've lost All-Ireland semi-finals, and it's definitely worse than losing a final.
We lost a decider in 2002 with Clare, but at least you were there and on the big stage. But losing a semi-final is galling and heart-wrenching.
I think the Wexford County Board will bend over backwards to get Davy Fitzgerald back for another year. The age profile of the team is good. There's good young talent in the county. The U20s have been in Leinster finals repeatedly in recent years. The minors won Leinster this year.
They attained silverware in 2019, and they have to take confidence that they went toe-to-toe with a top class side, and didn't in any way look like they were out of their depth or that they shouldn't be there.
They looked an infinitely better side from 12 months ago, when I really thought their race was run when they limped out of the championship against Clare.
Now they really have something to build on.
But it comes with a warning - Clare and Cork were within a whisker of making the All-Ireland final last year, and neither of them could make it back in 2019.
So there are absolutely no guarantees. Galway will come roaring back next season, Clare and Waterford will probably feel that they're not that far away.
That's the beauty of the hurling landscape at the moment, that we've two teams in the decider this year that didn't even make the semi-finals last year. What a glorious final we have to look forward to in three weeks' time.
Do referees need more help from technology?
The decision to not award Limerick a 65' at the end of their semi-final against Kilkenny was a contentious one.
It's just a shame that maybe that's the story from Saturday night's game. The commitment of the players, what they brought, the entertainment they served up, some of the scores that were taken, it's just a pity that the focus to an extent is on a wrong call at a crucial stage of the match.
From my position in the Sky Sports studio, I was directly in line with Darragh O'Donovan's line ball. My initial reaction was it took a deflection. The flight of the ball seemed to alter.
The Limerick players were incensed, running to the linesman and the referee. That should have set off an alarm bell in somebody's head.
In my opinion, Alan Kelly needed to get the call from linesman saying 'I can't be certain, but that could have clipped someone's hurley' and the umpire could have got that wrong.
Maybe there needs to be an outlet for the officials where somebody upstairs with access to the TV monitors who is mic-ed up to the referee can say 'listen, that was a 65'. It's a massive call. Ultimately, if it took 30 seconds or a minute at that point of the game to sort it out and make the right call, then I'm all for it.
I'm not so sure if a second referee feasible.
But what I do know is there are seven officials there. So much happens off the ball that umpires and particularly the two linesmen, who are qualified referees, need to be more active and more involved. Perhaps they need to have a bit more leeway to come onto the pitch if there's more off-the-ball stuff happening. The referee can't have eyes in the back of his head.
At the end of the day, we just want the right call to be made. And unfortunately, this appears to be one that they got wrong.
Sky Sports' GAA coverage continues on Saturday as the Super 8s comes to a head, with both Mayo vs Donegal and Kerry vs Meath live and exclusive.
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