Former inter-county referee Pat McEnaney is confident that the GAA will continue to steadily enhance the circumstances by which referees attempt to officiate Gaelic games.
Speaking to Kieran Donaghy on Thursday's OTB AM, McEnaney, the referee of four All-Ireland finals, believes it is only a matter of time before inter-county referees follow the path tread by their rugby counterparts and find themselves miked-up when on the field of play.
"If you look at the progress being made in the last number of years," McEnaney stated, "that is a step that I've no doubt the GAA will make in the next couple of years."
Contending with the broader issue of engendering clearer lines of communication between players and officials, attention was drawn toward footage that emerged of well-known rugby referee Nigel Owens carrying out a pre-match discussion with players ahead of a Pro 14 clash between Connacht and the Cheetahs.
Fuair @Rugbai_BEO deis éisteacht le @Nigelrefowens & é ag caint le @connachtrugby roimh an cluiche inniu
Nigel Owens telling the Connacht Team what he expects from them in today's game vs the Cheetahs.
@PRO14Official beo ar @TG4TV #CONvCHE pic.twitter.com/UpcIVPRTcm— Spórt TG4 (@SportTG4) February 16, 2019
With Owens' mic allowing listeners at home an insight into a pre-match ritual that left the players under no illusion as to what the referee would be looking to encourage and punish, McEnaney contends that the GAA will suitably look to move in a similar direction.
Although admitting that the association often travels as if a "very slow-moving mountain" when such changes are brought to the fore, McEnaney, with the noted exception of the proposed, trialed and abandoned hand-pass rule, suggests that the decisions made rarely turn out to be to the detriment of the game.
"When you look at where referees have come from since I started," McEnaney explained, "where the referee was on his own and just walked out to the linesman, everything was communicated on the field."
"Then we moved to the next step of buzzer flags, and then the next step was having you and your four umpires and two linesmen miked
"I think we need to get to the next step of being miked with the media people and get our message out there."
Although Pat McEnaney didn't go into great detail as to what form this innovation would take, it does suggest greater changes may be forthcoming on the field of play in the immediate years to come.
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