Super Article on Throw Balls in Hurling

The figures in that article are total BS let's be real here. Your man probably had one angle or even half an angle to judge it on many of those occasions.

Yes there is throwing going on, and a few culprits in particular (our soon to be hurler of the year springs to mind) but theres no way 70% of them are throws.

It's a farce.

Plenty of it in football too.

It's just an article by a Tipp lad, it's his opinion. No stats to back it up.

I am amused by a Tipp supporter going over old games with the pen and paper counting so called throws though.

Rent free

Yeh it’s BS. Couple of things

1) like you said, not having multiple angles, coding a hand pass in itself is tough. Saying it’s a throw ball is very tough then.. and even at that - coding it as a thrown ball is actually kind of weird behaviour

2) someone’s definition of a thrown ball might be different to others

I actually think articles/things like this are embarrassing

So that's it then, you feel embarrassed by the article, dismiss it as BS and there is nothing to see here?

Of course there are going to differences in what a tv viewer sees vs what a referee sees but how can the huge numbers contained in the article be reconciled with not a single free being awarded for the offence across all three games?

Not sure what you mean by coding above, but "someone’s definition of a thrown ball might be different to others" should be irrelevant and we should be only dealing with the definition of a clearly executed handpass i.e did the player execute a clear handpass or not?

The onus is on the player to execute the pass in such a way as to leave no doubt in the ref's mind (unless the refs view is obstructed for example, which is often the case) and excuses about the speed of players hands etc. these days don't standup.

I don't see much in this. I thought Cian Lynch threw the ball to Hegarty for his first goal and then Coleman threw the ball 20 secs later as Cork went to score a goal. These days there is no backswing of the arm, players swing the arm, release sliothar, pause swing of arm and then continue armswing. Sometimes players may open there hand while holding the ball to make it appear that they have release it when they haven't and might actually throw it.

I have more annoyance with what I call the "henry throw", when a player throws the ball out ahead of themselves making it look like they attempted to play it on the hurley only for it to hit the ground and pick it up again, often happens when they've already made two catches.

There is no consistency between what frees are given for in early championship vs in August. Its been a bad year for refereeing in both codes.

How prevalent is your "Henry throw" in today's game vs for example, when Henry was playing?

Can you give a few examples of it being used to advantage in this years Championship?

In your opinion is it a greater aid to a team's ability to keep position than the handpass?

Well considering they're the biggest culprits for it ? I'd say the same of any team.

Should be very easy to disprove his figures then, he has given the times and the criteria for judging them as throws.

I watched them v Waterford and Cork and they were definitely at it more. I remember watching kilkenny v cork and thinking out of all teams in the semis kilkenny were doing it correctly more than.any other team.

A Super article for sure and thankfully a few are concerned about this. Handpassing is a poor spectacle in both codes. Anything that makes the game flow and creates shallow excitement seems to be impossible to curtail in the GAA world even if its completely illegal and skill less. You cant defend a handpass (legal or illegal) and even if you can its probably an ugly tackle. Why are we not encouraging the great skills of blocks, hooks and stick passes rather than this desperate slingfest. If its not dealt with soon in hurling Im afraid it will be too late.