The controversy tanks on the GAA's football championship blew up yesterday before the season had even got off the runway.
On the weekend that the new rules on discipline were being inaugurated (a week early, to ensure consistency in the championship) the referee used his cards 20 times, including six red, during the Carlow-West Meath Leinster preliminary round tie at Dr Cullen Park. Four players from Carlow and two from West Meath were sent off. There was considerable uproar in Carlow afterwards with a former player extremely scathing about referee Niall Barrett on local radio station CKR. If the sending-off of four players from one side in a championship match is not a record, no one last night could remember a team finishing with 11 players.
By most accounts the match, won by West Meath, wasn't a vicious affair and half the dismissals were as a result of second bookable offences, but the furore is the last thing the GAA would have wanted in a year which has featured serial outbreaks of indiscipline on playing fields.
One of the West Meath players dismissed was Rory O'Connell, who only last Friday received the all-clear to play after his suspension for involvement in February's West Meath-Wicklow fracas was confirmed as a month - not long enough to keep him out of the match in Carlow.
He was, however, one of those dismissed for two yellow cards and consequently he will not face any suspension. The three players who received immediate red cards will face disciplinary hearings from the GAC rather than the Leinster Council - another provision of the new structures.
Referee Barrett from Cork is the first official to have been appointed to a match in a different province by the new Central Referees Appointments Committee (CRAC). Given the strong opposition from Leinster chairman Seamus Aldridge to the new system which removes the powers of appointment from provincial council, yesterday's events come as a deep embarrassment.
It proved an awkward afternoon for former All-Ireland referee Paddy Collins, a member of the three-man CRAC who is also West Meath county secretary. He refused to comment on the specifics of Barrett's performance but agreed that the controversy was "absolute fodder" for those who oppose the new disciplinary system.
He also denied that Croke Park had circularised referees to crack down on indiscipline this season. "The only instructions concerned the use of yellow and red cards which have been introduced for the championship."
Collins also commented on an earlier controversy which overtook the West Meath team, the withdrawal of their four under-21 players ahead of next Saturday's All-Ireland final in that age-group against champions Kerry.
"Last night (Saturday), I spoke to Brendan Lowry (West Meath senior manager) and he said he hadn't made his decision. He was under pressure to rest the players but I had been anxious that any withdrawal shouldn't be announced until later in the week because I could imagine the effect it would have on Carlow if they thought we were playing them with a deliberately weakened team.
"It's hard for people to understand if they're from counties like Cork, Kerry or Meath where there's no shortage of under-21 All-Irelands and All-Irelands in general but for West Meath it's a bit different. We're now just 60 minutes away from one whereas we're seven or eight hours away from a senior."
The Wexford-Longford preliminary round tie at New Ross ended in a draw after a spirited and entertaining game in dreadful conditions. The only goal of the game came from Longford's impressive debutante Paul Barden. He cut through the Wexford defence after nine minutes and linked with Derek Farrell before blasting home. Longford led 1-13 to 0-14 with time almost up, but classy Wexford forward Scott Doran cut the margin by a point and Rory Stafford tied the game up with a free.
