GAA Black Card Must Lead to Sin Bin
On a quiet Saturday in early January, with the GAA season barely up and running, I tuned into RTE Sport and listened to the debate between Eugene McGee and Louth manager Aidan O’Rourke.
Predictably, the new Black Card is already dividing opinion and typically, there has been criticism and calls for the new rules to be jettisoned.
The GAA needs to be loudly applauded for attempts to clean up GAA and attempt to weed out the nasty cynicism that has become all too frequent. Eugene McGee may be seen as old school and establishment by some modern managers, and perhaps he isn’t the best man to carry the fight publicly, but he is right that the Black Card must be introduced. As someone who still tries to play and is helping out teams here and there, the greatest cancer in GAA is still cynical fouling and it has to stop or the game will die.
The Black Card WILL help.
It is however, not enough. As was hinted by GAA Communications manager Alan Milton, the Black Card was probably the only rule that the Football Review committee could get through Congress and thus it must be viewed as a stepping stone to a badly needed Sin Bin.
The Black Cards is a deterrent, especially early on in a game and players will think twice about ugly rugby tackles and trips to prevent scoring chances as they will be taken off and never be seen again. The big weakness is when a game gets tight with 10-15 minutes to go and the deterrent is less and penalty almost irrelevant. A player would gladly take a Black Card to stop the opposition team in its tracks, only to be replaced by another fitter and fresher player and no real penalty for his team.
The GAA must persist with this process and ignore inevitable back biting and stick.
The GAA must also do two things.
It must evolve the Black Card into a 10 minute sin bin and ensure this happens sooner rather than later. It must also put shape on “carrying” cards and a player that persistently fouls throughout a season must be punished. Three yellows in competitive matches (Allianz League and Championship) should mean a one match ban.
Now that would help.
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