Waterford selector Stephen Frampton feels that hurling referees are under too much pressure from the assessors in the stand.
In his view, this additional strain has contributed to the controversial sin bins in this year’s championship. Déise defender Shane Fives was dismissed for a foul on Aron Shanagher during their Munster championship defeat to Clare while Banner forward Aidan McCarthy was sidelined for ten minutes against Tipperary a week later.
“The rule was brought in with good intentions. A pity it wasn't last year because we were at wrong end of a lot of tackling within the 21 and we didn't get anything out of it. Everybody talks about the Clare match the last day, that was a poor decision. My own belief is that we’ve got good referees in the country. I think that referees are refereeing games in fear at the moment because they’ve got an adjudicator up in the stand looking at absolutely every twist and turn that they make and every decision they make. They’re more worried about pleasing that person up in the stand than concentrating on keeping a match flowing or keeping a match refereed correctly. As a result, referees are making bad decisions and mistakes on the pitch. I think that rule came in for the right reasons. The reason why there’s bad decisions is because referees are refereeing in a stressful situation. It’s difficult enough to be a referee but having an assessor question your every move and question your every decision is just crazy. That is one of the reasons why referees are making poor decisions and they’re good referees you know. That’s my own personal opinion. I think if that was got rid of, you'd see much better games and you wouldn't see as many mistakes."
Hear more from Stephen Frampton on Lár Na Páirce from 6.10 on WLR. Derek McGrath, the Murray triplets and Lorraine Bray will also feature on the show.
