ULSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL:All-Ireland glory may have eluded the rugged defender but he's still game to try and put one over on old Ulster rivals Tyrone this Sunday

TIMING PUT Ciarán McKeever in an unfortunate position. He joined the Armagh panel in 2003. After the lord mayor’s show.

It was supposed to be the start of a great era but instead he and his clan were forced to watch on as neighbours Tyrone gathered three All-Irelands.

At least there will always be days like this Sunday. Mickey Harte is bringing the Red Hand brigade across the county line for an Ulster gathering at the Athletic Grounds.

Armagh and Tyrone. They cornered an era of football history all to themselves. Filled Croke Park on several occasions. Even for the manic provincial final of 2005.

It’s no longer of national interest but from 2003 to 2005 everyone with leanings towards Gaelic games was captivated. Ferocity mingled with some brilliant football as Kerry and Dublin were made suffer the pain of some serious defeats.

McKeever was in the thick of it. Still is. With chiselled jaw, this hardened defender was the rock Ireland used during the International Rules (the man you want around just in case some Antipodean starts swinging).

Peter Canavan had the last laugh come the ’05 All-Ireland semi-final, but he won’t be thanking McKeever and other Armagh heavies for the introduction they afforded him in that year’s Ulster decider.

For weeks afterwards Cork referee Michael Collins became as infamous as his namesake around the time he was accused of abandoning the North.

McKeever was in the thick of it, alright.

“I was sent off controversially. Again.” Michael Collins? “Aye. Another red card rescinded!”

When asked if that was the last time Armagh beat Tyrone in championship his eyebrows are raise slightly before replying, “Don’t know. Not into stats.”

But his Cheshire grin appears after the next question: Do you suffer from having a reputation, like say Paul Galvin, for getting involved in controversy?

“Stats? I’ve been playing club senior football for 15 years, never been sent off. I’ve been on the Armagh panel since 2003, I think I’ve been sent off twice, maybe that I deserved, and I’ve been sent off on several occasions that have been rescinded.

“I feel that before I go out I’m in the referee’s book. It’s up to me to try and curtail that there but when some people come looking for you there’s very little you can do about it. When the referee demands a yellow or red card for something you didn’t do it’s hard to stomach.”

It’s a fine line mainly because McKeever’s role is that of the enforcer. “Well that’s the name of the game. If there’s somebody there that’s got to be hit, they’ve got to be hit.

“I think it boils down to consistency of referees and umpires and linesmen. It boils down to a lot of these men in the CCCC that have the right to look over a match when it’s over but at the end of the day they can’t call a decision that a referee makes during a match.

“They can’t reprimand them or make them stand up and be counted for what they did wrong but they can accuse a player. It is just wrong.

“It’s a lot harder on defenders these days. What could be a free on Sunday mightn’t be a free in a different match.

“If you’re a forward you get away with 10 fouls in a match and not get booked whereas a defender makes one and he’s living on the edge after that.”

The other rescinded red card McKeever refers to came during a league match in Portlaoise last March. He was incensed by an old jibe used to rise many an Ulster GAA man. McKeever was called a ‘British bastard’.

An Armagh official screamed racism via an official release but when Croke Park intervened all parties involved eventually agreed to get along.

“It’s something I don’t want to comment on. I think it was very badly handled. There was a lot of stuff in the press and nobody knew what happened. I’d rather keep quiet about it and not be dragging any individual into it.

“As far as I’m concerned what happens on the field with me stays on it.

“I never came crying out of what happened and what was said. It was just something I’m used to this past seven, eight, 10 years from this same individual so there’s no point coming crying about it now.”

But the incident sparked something else worth examining. McKeever as captain gets annoyed by not being able to communicate with referees in heat of battle.

“Some referees you can crack a joke with them on the field and ask them what that free kick was for. But I think the majority of them are non-negotiable. They feel if a player’s talking to them they’re speaking down on them but you are only asking them what the free kick is for, but they have the authority to treat you like a schoolboy in the playground.

“Yeah, all you ask for is a bit of common sense.

“There’s a lot more communication (in International Rules). If you ask a referee what was the free given for, he’ll tell you instead of telling you to ‘shut up and get on with the game’, which is disrespectful to the players when the player hasn’t got the right to even do that to a referee. Why should a referee have the right so say that to a player?”