The Dark side of the game.

wackokid wrote: »

He got the red card for his assault on Colm Cavanagh. Listen to the commentary and watch the incident.

Jippo wrote: »

Assault???!! Have you proof of this (that the ref sent him off for the "assault")? Have you seen the ref's report?

I would have thought the ref was thinking black. Was Hughes on yellow and would have gotten a red because of that?

It actually shouldn't matter (whether Hughes got sent off or not) but the fact of the matter is that not half as much was made of Shields' incident because the referee saw what happened. McCann is getting a raw deal no doubt.

wackokid wrote: »

No, I didn't see the refs report, but did see the assault and heard the SKY commentator say " Hughes is for the long walk after that tackle"

Perhaps you will know why that great warrior Paul Geaney thought it necessary to welt into Shields? He is one nasty piece of goods and will get his comeuppance soon.

Jayop wrote: »

Way to miss the point.

I don't care what that muppet moyles thinks, the problem is that the official rte Sunday game Twitter favourited this.

I hope Kerry knock seven shades out of these Tyrone lads ...that McCann lad needs a serious lesson given to him
12:25am - 9 Aug 15

A tweet encouraging violence against a team and an individual player. But yeah, we're all paranoid up north.

keane2097 wrote: »

It leaves the question open about whether Hughes should have received a red card for the McCann incident or not.

In the last couple of seasons we've had the GAA sort of messing around with its rules with incidents like Connolly in 11, Keegan in 14. Kevin Keane is now appealing his red card.

These were all players guilty of breaching the "strike or attempt to strike rule" which the GAA found various ways to get around.

One school of thought would be to crack down further and change it to something like "raise hand aggressively against opponent" or similar so ruffling a guy's hair while involved in "an argument" would be covered as it's hard to draw the line otherwise.

I'd go the other way personally and add something like "due regard will be given to mitigating circumstances" and set a panel to review incidents like these. Connolly would then possibly be let off because he was unfairly targeted, provoked, defended himself and the 'victim' dived.

Keegan and Keane would get retrospective yellow/black cards for 'petulance' or similar rather than red cards for striking when there was no intent or possibility to do damage.

Refs get way more scope to apply the rules with common sense in rugby to good effect. Someone panning out an opponent with a punch would get the line, Kevin Keane would never get anything in a million years and rightly so.

Instead we get constant howling for "consistency" which can only come from rigid application of imperfect rules from the same people who later howl when these same rules are rigidly applied to their players.

davegrohl48 wrote: »

The biggest problem with the black card is the lack of punishment suffered during the game. It is only by the 4th Black card you are down 1 player. I have yet to hear of the match where a team actually suffered a 4th Black card.
They should have kept the substitutes at five and make the following simple changes:
1. Second black card you cannot replace. (Stops stacking up black cards as a tactic)
2. In the final ten minutes there is no substitution for black cards. (Stops time wasting as a tactic)
3. A black card inside the penalty area is not replaceable (Stops most prevention of goals as a tactic)
This would take away the still existing problem where it is worth it to take a black card, "the taking one for the team" tactic.