Like the joke about the depressive economist, who forecast 10 of the last three recessions, apostles of black card Armageddon got yet another glimpse of the bleakly perceived future.

Pre-season tournaments came and went without fuss; wait for the league. The league has come and gone without fuss; wait for the championship. Then just as the championship begins, it all goes wrong; told you.

This is not to diminish the difficulties that arose in Omagh but it’s equally important not to get carried away by them.

There had been speculation that the workings of the new card might become more difficult in the championship. Tyrone’s captain and fireman-in-chief Seán Cavanagh had said as much nine days before playing Down.

“We’ll be sitting probably chatting about it during the summer about some high-profile incidents that will go against some teams,” he prophesied. “It puts a lot of pressure on referees and officials but I think in general it’s definitely improved the game from a neutral point of view because everyone wants to see scores.”

The purpose of the black card is sometimes misunderstood. In Cavanagh's passing reference, it is a dispensation that helps forwards to get scores by reducing defensive pressure. An inversion of this is the fortress aesthetic, a love of good defending, which is preferred to high scoring.

Express skill
Yet none of these concerns are at the heart of the black card's purpose. It is equally used to protect defenders trying to break forward and is agnostic on the desirability of increased quantities of goals and points. All the sanction – requiring the miscreant player to leave the field and be replaced – intends to do is allow a player express skill without being deliberately prevented outside the rules from doing so.

So it was on Sunday that when Tyrone goalkeeper Niall Morgan lunged with a raised leg to trip up the incoming Jerome Johnston. He wasn't making a genuine attempt to snuff out the attack within the rules; he was just making sure the Down replacement didn't score.

There were few complaints about this – although Kevin McStay on the Sunday Game did plausibly refer to the possibility that Morgan might have been shown a red card.

Controversy arose in the comparisons with the earlier Tyrone penalty in the first half. Mark Donnelly was wrestled to the ground by Conor Maginn and although the attacker managed eventually to poke the ball into the net, referee David Coldrick awarded the penalty. More contentiously he didn't show Maginn a black card and the Bryansford player went on to score his team's third goal.

The controversy over the non-application of the advantage rule appears misplaced in that video review clearly identifies the referee’s whistle sounding just as it looks like the tumbling Donnelly has lost the chance of scoring.

Maginn’s remaining on the field isn’t as easily explained and has to count as an error but when a referee is concentrating on whether a penalty is appropriate – a big call in a championship match – it can be hard instantly to categorise the foul.

Coldrick is not just a highly regarded referee but was also seen as someone with a sufficiently authoritative grasp of the new disciplinary measures, accepted by the GAA’s 2013 annual congress in Derry, to be involved in the roll-out of the rules and the accompanying education campaign.

Tyrone's first All-Ireland winning captain Peter Canavan made the point on Monday that the Meath referee was in all likelihood appointed to officiate at the first big match of the year in order to minimise the prospects of controversy.

It does however say something about the pressure on a referee that one high-profile mistake on a filthy wet day during a match that went from catatonic in the first half to fast and furious in the second, can place him under such scrutiny.

Coldrick was also taken to task yesterday by a former inter-county referee for a decision to bring forward a '45' awarded to Tyrone in the first half - on the grounds that, as it wasn't a free there was no such competence to advance a '45' for encroachment or dissent. Yet rule 2.8 in the Official Guide (Part 2) clearly states:

In play
"When the ball is played over the end-line and outside the goalposts by the team defending that end, a free kick off the ground shall be awarded to the opposing team on the 45m line opposite where the ball crossed the end-line."

Similarly criticism of the last, equalising free on the basis that it shouldn’t have been awarded when the ball wasn’t in play – it was given for a foul on Cavanagh, as Stephen O’Neill was getting ready to take a line ball – overlooks rules 4.17 to 4.21 that forbid encroachment or interference when a free or kick-out is being taken. Like ‘45’s, line balls are described in the rules as ‘free kicks’.

The latter case has been referred to the GAA’s Standing Committee on the Playing Rules, as the decision on Sunday was at worst, ambiguous.

There’s a standard response to refereeing mistakes, which permeates post-match discussion. It goes along the lines that players put in too much effort during winter and spring to have their fortunes capriciously undermined by refereeing error.

Referees put in a major effort as well and have to cope with players, who also make mistakes, setting out to deceive them.

When launching the changes back in December, Coldrick said, “… once the association gives its full backing to these rules, there’ll be no issue from a refereeing point of view”.

He was politely referring to the GAA’s history of doubtful resolve when controversy strikes reforms and especially disciplinary reforms. Modesty forbade him from mentioning full backing for referees too. Yet they – and in this case, he – deserve it.