Umpires - Who Are They?

PaulieG

After seeing two umpires stand and watch the ball being thrown into the net and do NOTHING, you have to wonder how they are selected.

gooch2k9

Lord knows, but they seem oblivious to goings on!

homerjay2005

this is my main gripe.

they are just averages joes, tom, pats and willies who get very litte, if no training, preperation and coaching.

realistically, you should have 7 officials who are reffing the game, not one. thats 7 pairs of eyes and that should lessen mistakes.

angeleyes

They are the buddies and/or family of the Referee. I have seen a Referee from another county bring his siblings and their spouses to umpire at matches that he refs at.

keane2097

Tbh I don't really see the point in umpires.

They stand in perhaps the worst area of the pitch possible to assess whether a ball went over the bar, they often seem to have fairly serious lapses in concentration, missing incidents and relying on the ref to make the decisions and they seem to get a huge % of the actual difficult decisions wrong.

I think there is probably a better way to use the seven officials than the setup we currently have, and seven is probably even too many.

123easy

in short - visually impaired idiots

mal1

Croke park is a joke. The safety steward in my section of the stadium was about 80 (i'm not exaggerating). Don't know how he got up to the upper tiers.

SomeFool

In fairness they're there to direct people to their seats/exits not as bouncers.

123easy

SomeFool wrote: »

In fairness they're there to direct people to their seats/exits not as bouncers.

Plus as ever the Grab All Association don't pay them anything. Its voluntary

mal1

SomeFool wrote: »

In fairness they're there to direct people to their seats/exits not as bouncers.

Safety Steward was written on has coat. I'm sure they have certain responsibilities during an emergency. Maybe i'm wrong.

Anyway, he couldn't actually make his way up the steps to point out the seats to people coming in. He was just telling people to move over a couple of seats to let the late comers sit at the edges.

rebel girl 15

keane2097 wrote: »

Tbh I don't really see the point in umpires.

They stand in perhaps the worst area of the pitch possible to assess whether a ball went over the bar, they often seem to have fairly serious lapses in concentration, missing incidents and relying on the ref to make the decisions and they seem to get a huge % of the actual difficult decisions wrong.

I think there is probably a better way to use the seven officials than the setup we currently have, and seven is probably even too many.

How about we train them properly and pay them - umpires aren't paid and aren't trained to be umpires. The ref brings them and has to pay for them. Most refs at inter county end up losing money and I'd say there are plenty of other refs at county level that are good enough, but don't want the hassle of inter county. Giving up a day to be an umpire when you could be refereeing and making money - think I know which one I would pick!

The set up is grand, just implement it properly. Look at Aussie Rules, one umpire behind the goals with plenty of room to move. Train the umpires to move behind the goal properly for points - make sure there is room to move, bring goal posts forward if needed to allow for room. You would only need one nearly!

rossie1977

i remember a few years ago roscommon player frankie dolan accussed an umpire of being drunk and claimed he was able to smell drink off him at a match where he got a number of calls wrong, whenever i see umpires today thats all i can think of

at the hurling game in thurles today the umpires looked completely clueless as well especially when they gave that one point for cork (which was wide), one of them ran a little bit to his right and then looked around in complete bemusement

Diabhal Beag

They made a mistake. This was not their job even. The get paid in travel expenses only.

The sea of bodies didn't make the goal any clearer.

Louth threw away the Title. Ye missed a lot of easy frees.

flahavaj

I always have to laugh at the fact that umpires are usually about seventy, sure the eyesight can't be the best at that age.:pac:

starlit

did the umpires even see what happend? they just stood there looking around and oh didn't know what was actually happening in front of them? :rolleyes:

Mayo Exile

snuggles285 wrote: »

did the umpires even see what happend? they just stood there looking around and oh didn't know what was actually happening in front of them? :rolleyes:

There's the view one of them (and the other one surely as well) had of the "goal". The mind boggles.....................

Lando Griffin

Mayo Exile wrote: »

There's the view one of them (and the other one surely as well) had of the "goal". The mind boggles.....................

Next year they will be called assistant referees and they wont get anything wrong.

corny

The thing i can't understand about umpires, and this is especially relevant in hurling, is why they're men in thier fifties or older. The eyesight begins to fade eventually and why they can't get sharp eyed ****ers in their twenties or thirties i'll never know. Senility seems to have set in with most of them its that bad.

cc87

It wasnt the umpires, they didnt award the goal. The ref told them it was a goal and to wave the flag. He didnt consult with them at all.

Des Carter

cc87 wrote: »

It wasnt the umpires, they didnt award the goal. The ref told them it was a goal and to wave the flag. He didnt consult with them at all.

Totally agree you can clearly see the ref note the score in his pad without even looking at the umpires and then runs over to them and orders them to raise the flag as the green flag was kept down signalling no goal. The Ref is 100% to blame.

To make it worse during the week a member of the louth board lodged a complaint against that ref stating he was incompetent and biased against louth.

NufcNavan

mal1 wrote: »

Croke park is a joke. The safety steward in my section of the stadium was about 80 (i'm not exaggerating). Don't know how he got up to the upper tiers.

Nice to see that you enjoyed your big day out.

hardybuck

Why take the pressure off every official and bring in video!? We thought FIFA were bad, wait till you see how badly the GAA will fudge this...

20 Times 20 Times

hardybuck wrote: »

Why take the pressure off every official and bring in video!? We thought FIFA were bad, wait till you see how badly the GAA will fudge this...

A lot of people made that argument with me tonight in the bars and that but you know what i reckon they will just see $$$$

Reloc8

^exactly what cc87 and Des said above.

I'm coming at this as a rugby ref. Looking at the interaction between the ref and the man with the green flag a number of times, I thought it appeared as if he told the umpire to put the flag up (which I presume he as the ref is entitled to do i.e. he makes the final decision on whether a goal is scored or not). He didn't seem to consult at all. Granted I'm only going on a visual of what happened between them but that tallys with some of the accounts given by people on scene, so to speak.

Now, I am presuming that a GAA ref is entitled to check certain matters with his umpire...whether he can ask a specific factual question ('did he throw that') to get information so as to give a ruling or whether he can ask a general question ('was a goal scored' or 'should I award a goal') I don't know. I don't know of any official 'protocols' in this area but I'm sure that there is a procedure which refs are trained to use. I'd be very interested as to what that is.

Anyway pending that I don't see it as an umpire issue at all. It was a refereeing failure in the first instance to make use of the umpire. As noted above he seemed to award the score from his position out the field a bit and then proceed to have the flag raised.

Its not even comparable to e.g. the mistake on the Lampard goal in the World Cup 2nd round v Germany. That's true human error in a sport which hasn't made use of fairly accessible options which it generally chooses not to make use of.

The GAA has neutral goal line observers...to prevent exactly this kind of thing. In this case however the ref clearly felt he had an adequate view of the incident, but did not seem to take anything from the fact that his umpire was not raising a green flag. That should have raised alarm bells for him but apparently it didn't.

There might be another debate to have about what happens if an umpire did make a howler but in this instance I don't think this even arises. As is equally self-evidence, the chances of two umpires missing an infraction of this nature in the goal-mouth is pretty slim in any event.

On slightly different theme, he was not helped by having (understandably) excited players in and around the goal-mouth and would definitely have been better served by insisting that they withdraw while he speak with the umpire, just to give him a moment's calmness in a very fraught situation.

I have a lot of sympathy for him. I also have huge sympathy for the Louth team and management, and their supporters (from which I exclude the obvious people who misconducted themselves appallingly badly).

I don't see how any sporting body can intervene to change a result post fact arising from a referee error without creating huge problems - once you do that, you can no longer in principle refuse to do so in future matches and are left with massive debate simply on the nature and degree of the error necessary to get a replay. Coming up with workable criteria for that would be impossible. I suspect there will be considerable pressure on Meath to offer a replay.

Reloc8

There's a discussion of this aspect of the incident here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055965568

Didn't look like the ref made use of his umpires to me.

panda100

Theres a good post on another thread by Blackbelt on the role of umpires;

blackbelt wrote: »

Right,

Just to clarify a few things and shed some light on the subject.There are a few mistruths and misperceptions going on here about whose fault it is.

Firstly,the square ball is a matter for the referee to decide.The umpire has no authority to disallow a point or goal if it is a square ball.Secondly,the umpire's duties are to signal for points,goals,wides,45/65s and inform the referee of any off the ball jostling,fighting etc.

The umpire does not run onto the pitch to tell the referee if there was a technical foul before a score.However,the referee has to be sure and on consulting his umpire if there is any doubt,he could have overruled a score.

I think after yestersay we need to see properly trained umpires,amd give them more of a vocal relationship with the ref,instead of just two gombeens standing behind the posts.

murphdogg11

Its bad enough that the umpires don't know the rules but when the ref doesn't you're in real trouble!

T runner

Des Carter wrote: »

Totally agree you can clearly see the ref note the score in his pad without even looking at the umpires and then runs over to them and orders them to raise the flag as the green flag was kept down signalling no goal. The Ref is 100% to blame.

To make it worse during the week a member of the louth board lodged a complaint against that ref stating he was incompetent and biased against louth.

Interesting. He may have been compensating and favouring Louth during the game to counteract that view. This would have suited things nicely as it made the scores closer to a draw. When there was only a point in it he gave everything to Meath. I was at the match and the ref was playing for a draw without doubt.

I think the goal was a result of this policy of going for draws to make money on replays backfiring badly.

Its terrible when players and teams train so hard only for match results to be rigged towards draws anytime the score is close.

Id be interested to see the stats of draws versus one point margins in championship games. It should be 2:1 (in favour of the one point margin)

rebel girl 15

corny wrote: »

The thing i can't understand about umpires, and this is especially relevant in hurling, is why they're men in thier fifties or older. The eyesight begins to fade eventually and why they can't get sharp eyed ****ers in their twenties or thirties i'll never know. Senility seems to have set in with most of them its that bad.

I do know - they are either playing or refereeing at the weekend. Which would people think lads would choose, playing a game/refereeing and getting paid for a game or standing behind a goal for an hour and a bit, travel to the game and back and all you get is a meal?

How about you put yourself forward and show them how it is done?

Louth should have had that game won before the goal, and had players stupid enough to waste time for which the ref would add on time