One of the underlying trends in the GAA's behaviour at central level is the instinct for survival. It was accordingly not much of a surprise that the Management Committee last night decided to throw out the Leinster Council's inexplicable decision to grant Carlow a re-fixture last Friday evening.

The supremacy of the knockout system in the GAA's most important competitions has fed the anxiety that drives teams despairingly to seek review of their defeats in committee rooms. But every time such reviews are pursued represents danger for the GAA in general. The controversy brought to a close last night was only the latest illustration.

At a media briefing in Croke Park yesterday Paddy Collins, chairman of the National Referees Committee and member of the Central Referees' Appointments Committee, made two observations about the nature of refereeing. Collins's position on all this is a bit delicate as he was heading off to the Management Committee meeting yesterday evening to represent Westmeath and he didn't feel able to comment on the Carlow-Westmeath controversy.

What he had to say was nonetheless germane. "The referee's decision is final," he said. "That is the basis on which I refereed and on which I have advised referees." He later referred to the pressure involved in making what he termed "instant subjective judgements".

This is the basis on which all major field games take place. It's demonstrably imperfect but in the absence of providing video technology and back-up advisers for referees (a remote concept which even if realised is unlikely to be available outside top-class matches), it will continue to be the means of arbitration on the field for a considerable time to come.

If mistakes are made, that's rough on the teams involved but it's a risk run by everyone. All that can be generally asked of referees is that they do their best and act impartially. There's no reason to doubt Niall Barrett's performance last Sunday week on either ground. As has become evident, he was mistaken in his application of the rules but in what way is this different to any other occurrences of faulty officiating.

In other words unless the errors were so fundamental as to render the match null and void, they merely led to an uneven - or poor - refereeing performance. The evidence for the former doesn't really stack up.

What was the impact of Niall Barrett's overly-severe interpretation of the rules? He booked or showed a yellow card to players who had committed one of the offences which come under the heading of persistent fouling. It has been well established by now that referees' guidelines stipulate that the yellow is shown after two such fouls.

That players were booked after one such offence contradicts the categorisation of persistent fouls and contravenes guidelines on the matter. But what was the impact of that? It was simply that three players, two Carlow and one Westmeath, were unjustly shown yellow cards. Yet once on yellow, they were all aware that one further foul of any type would result in dismissal.

Eleven other players in the match managed to have yellow cards flashed at them and yet restrain themselves from incurring further sanction. So how fundamental were the original - albeit unjust - bookings to the outcome of the match?

In all of this, the question of why Niall Barrett misapplied the rules has become a confusing backdrop but in considering the issue as a whole and the consequences of his errors, it is not really relevant why the referee erred.

If the mistakes were fundamental, why did the Games Administration Committee (entrusted, for added confusion, with considering Barrett's report) implicitly approve the referee's report by suspending Westmeath's Kenny Lyons, one of three players sent off for immediate red card offences, and by starting proceedings on the other two, Brian Farrell and Sean Kavanagh from Carlow?

At the Leinster Council meeting which followed GAC last Friday night, even provincial chairman Seamus Aldridge was at pains to point out that no-one was arguing the match had been "null and void". So how did Leinster arrive at the decision, rightly and without hyperbole or excessive partiality, described as "astonishing" by Westmeath chairman Seamus Whelan?

In deciding to re-fix the match, the council was swayed by arguments that the outcome was "an injustice to Carlow" and that the fixture had effectively been refereed under rules which fundamentally altered the nature of the game.

Nothing was adduced to back up this assertion and the appeal was lodged on the basis of Rule 104 which simply states that a referee cannot make an award of a game, an obvious provision to allow for objections based on technical matters such as the validity of players.

An unspoken context was the one that no-one would be done any harm by the match being re-fixed. Westmeath probably didn't attract much sympathy by the self-righteousness of their argument: we were ahead on the scoreboard at the end, we were more disciplined and didn't commit as many fouls. But essentially they were right and particularly on the point that re-fixtures shouldn't be granted in contentious circumstances without the agreement of both teams.

That the margin against Westmeath was so overwhelming, 19 votes to six, is partly explained by parochialism. Just as Westmeath's neighbours Longford were the only county to vote for them, the charge on behalf of Carlow was led by Wexford, Kilkenny and Wicklow.

It is alarming for the GAA that attempts are increasingly being made to change the results of matches in committee rooms. Hardly a season goes by without some controversially allowed/disallowed score ending up in appeals to authority to have the match re-fixed. Last Friday's meeting illustrated - rather than undermined - the need for centralised authority in relation to disciplinary matters. Recent weeks have shown one of the reasons why soccer doesn't have the constant problems which constantly beset hurling and, particularly, football.

If soccer referees are in error and spectacular examples cropped up in both the Celtic-Rangers and Liverpool-Manchester United matches, the authorities stand by them. The presumption is that even if mistakes are made, the authority of the referee must be upheld.

It may be unfair in certain cases but as Carlow pointed out, the real injustice is in training for 100 nights and then seeing your championship terminate after just one match. No wonder a team will pursue any avenue open to them, but contrary to Carlow's claims about being beaten fair and square, the injustice isn't remedied by being hammered off the field.

Next year's preliminary round-robin in Leinster is a start but the whole daft tyranny of knockout-based championships needs to be addressed so that teams aren't forced to pursue their ambitions in committee rooms after their time on the pitch has been cut wastefully short.

Email to: smoran@irish-times.ie