Mayo GAA announce major changes to running of club matches

CLUB football matches in Mayo will never be the same again. The new season will be up and running across the county very shortly and major changes have been announced by Mayo GAA.

At last night's county board meeting in Hastings Insurance MacHale Park, delegates were told of the changes which will take effect for all club football games this season.

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“It's hoped to have a fourth official at every game above U-16 level. They will assist the referee with the 'Three-up' rule, the two-point scores and sideline discipline,” Mayo GAA Secretary Ronan Kirrane explained. “The fourth officials will not be there to deal with lineballs or that type of thing. Lines-people drawn from a pool of people nominated by both clubs will run the line and their sole function will be line-balls only,” he added.

A number of delegates expressed the view that while the new situation was to be welcomed, it would put an even greater burden on the number of referees available for matches.

Hollymount Carramore delegate and former chairman of Mayo GAA, Mike Connelly, was one of those to voice concerns.

“The new rules are throwing up many opportunities, but they also pose a major struggle for the organisation. We need good quality officials and we might be stretching them too thin in certain cases. I'm concerned. There's nothing easy about this. If you're an umpire standing at the butt of the post, it's hard to see if a ball was kicked from outside the arc.”

Seamus Tuohy, Mayo GAA Chairman, said they had been instructed that only qualified referees could be fourth officials and while this would pose a big challenge, all assistance given to referees with the implementation of the new rules was a good thing.

“We have to work with the refs we have,” he added.

Sean MacÉil, Mayo's referee's co-ordinator, told the meeting that officials were being trained and educated about the new rules.

“The appointment of a fourth official is a great idea and we've been working away here preparing for the season. We've had two of our inter-county referees Jerome Henry and Liam Devenney in talking to our refs and we've had a number of meetings already and there are more to come. I share the concerns expressed here tonight, but with the co-operation of everyone I'm confident we'll be fine.”

Mayo GAA Vice Chairman, Michael Diskin agreed that implementing the new rules will be a challenge for all and the pressure on refereeing numbers will be bigger than ever.

“There will be some weekends in the summer when the amount of games will require some refs to be out four times, so that's a big concern,” he added.

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