Former Dublin Ladies goalkeeper Clíodhna O’Connor has said that the black card in hurling would have had a bigger impact than the new pass back rule in football.
O’Connor was speaking on Monday’s Off The Ball about motions that were voted on over the weekend at the GAA’s Congress.
The new pass back rule in Gaelic football that prohibits defenders who receive a kick-out from passing it back to their goalkeeper.
Meanwhile, a motion to introduce a black card into hurling was resoundingly defeated by a margin of 82% to 18%.
“With the black card, or something like that, it has a bigger impact on a game than that the football pass back rule would have in nine weeks time.
“It would definitely be unfair, it would definitely need to be trial periods and stuff like if you were making any changes of that sort,” the former All Star said.
A statistician argued that “48 per cent of fouls involved cynical or disruptive contact,” however, O’Connor thinks the definition of what’s cynical or not is blurry.
“That’s one of those things that’s like, where’s the line? What’s cynical and you can argue both sides of it all the time,” O’Connor said.
“I mean the nature of hurling is very combative and what I do see is, there’s a lot more coaching going into the tackle and the technique around the tackle.
“I think referees are going after those sorts of things a lot more, and rightly so, and they’re trying to draw a clearer line around those sorts of things and I think everyone agrees with that in terms of high tackles.
“There is a little bit of control that is needed around that, which everyone is in favour of,” she said.
When questioned about whether the frequency of cynical fouling was an issue in hurling she said it wasn’t any more frequent than in other sports.
She added that hurlers would be hesitant to give away cynical fouls because of the range from which some free-takers can score.
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