On Soccer: Even some of those very closely associated with refereeing in Ireland admit that this hasn't been the best of seasons for our league's match officials. To date three have effectively been suspended for a month after turning in poor performances while a handful more have been on the receiving end of bitter attacks over handling of incidents or games.

As their now departed manager, Gareth Farrelly, rarely tired of mentioning, Bohemians have had more than their fair share of problems in this department.

The former international became so frustrated with what he saw as poor standards that - despite his side being well on the way to a convincing win at Bray a couple of months back - he managed to get himself sent off at the Carlisle Grounds when his side had a clear-cut goal dismissed as a wide by Alan Kelly, the ball having crossed the line before bouncing back on to the pitch.

Prior to that Dave McKeon had awarded Drogheda United a penalty in a game with the Dublin club for a challenge that was clearly a yard or more outside the box.

And it was probably just as well for Farrelly's health that he had departed Bohemians before Drogheda, in the next meeting between the two clubs - a four-goal draw - were awarded an equalising goal by Anthony Buttimer when Declan O'Brien's close-range effort had been blocked and then cleared from well short of the line.

There have been a string of other high-profile incidents during the season but never a week quite like the last one.

Derry were left outraged by the treatment they received at the hands of the match officials who oversaw both of their games with Shelbourne. And Waterford United were similarly put out on Friday by McKeon's decision to overrule an offside flag by one of his assistants at Dalymount Park, where Bohemians came from behind to win 3-1.

Derry's sense of injustice is based on somewhat mixed foundations. After the League Cup final Stephen Kenny argued with considerable justification that David Forde had been wronged by Ian Stokes when the goalkeeper was sent off for handling outside his area seven minutes from the end of normal time.

There was no dispute that there was contact between the ball and the goalkeeper's hand, but the relevant rule clearly states that there must be intent on the part of the player punished for a handball.

There is nothing in the regulations about "ball to hand", "hand to ball" or even about a player "asking for trouble by leaving his hands up". There is only a requirement of intent, and television replays made it abundantly clear that Forde could not have intended something which occurred a fraction of a second after the ball came flying off a boot when he attempted a perfectly fair tackle on an opponent.

Immediately after the game, Kenny suggested that Killian Brennan had also been harshly treated when dismissed for his flying challenge on Owen Heary. The City manager suggested, correctly, that the midfielder did not make any contact with the Shelbourne right back. That, however, was primarily down to the Dubliner jumping clear of what looked a dangerous lunge. If he had stayed put, Brennan would have missed the ball and quite possibly caused Heary serious injury, and that, in the rule book, warranted a straight red card.

So too did Heary's subsequent attempt to strike Brennan - which television clearly highlighted. And the failure of Stokes and the referee's assistant, standing just a few feet away, to spot the latter incident understandably heightened Derry's sense of injustice.

When Pat Jennings was dismissed four days later by another Dublin referee - Paul Tuite - for a challenge on Jason Byrne in the league game between the same two sides, Kenny was moved to complain that his side seemed to be victims of bias on the part of match officials from the capital, who seemed to favour Metropolitan clubs.

Any perception of bias should not, of course, be allowed to persist. And if it is at all possible then certain games should not be overseen by referees from Dublin. The problem on this particular occasion, however, was that the television replays, so often the bane of referees' lives, strongly suggested that Tuite was right to show Jennings the red card.

Kenny and a number of his players talked afterwards about the fact that two defenders would have got back in time to block a shot on goal but, once again, according to the rules this is irrelevant.

The goalkeeper should be dismissed, the laws state, if he "denies an obvious goalscoring opportunity" to an opponent. And when Byrne pushed the ball past Jennings on Friday it seems hard to deny that this was "an obvious goalscoring opportunity".

City might have more basis for complaint on the grounds that the rule goes on to state the player fouled should be moving "towards the (offending) player's goal".

Kenny contended that the ball ended up at the corner flag, which may be true, but Byrne, regularly the league's top scorer in recent years, certainly didn't look to have overhit the ball when he pushed it on. And the reality is that in almost every instance where a goalkeeper comes to narrow the angle and then takes down a player after being rounded, the ball will initially be travelling toward a point well wide of the goal.

In such instances the referee has to make a call on whether the outfield player was still on course for "an obvious goalscoring opportunity". On Friday, for all the criticism he received, the referee got it right. But it will take more than that to successfully counter a widespread feeling that the general standard here simply isn't good enough.