Tag Archives: Fergie O’Loughlin

This week The Clare Champion hurling columnist asks why two leading referees were sitting in the stand at last weekends senior quarter-finals. I WAS in Cusack Park on Saturday evening. Sitting across from me were Rory McGann and Rory Hickey. They are the two best referees in the county but they were sitting above in the stand. Somebody needs to explain why they weren’t refereeing any of the four senior hurling quarter-finals at the weekend. It’s a no brainer for me that these lads had to be refereeing a couple of those games. Somebody has to stand up and explain why neither of them were. We saw a situation last year where the referees stuck together when Ambrose Heagney got the county final. None of them wanted to make themselves available to do the line or the fourth official’s role because they felt hard done by with the appointment. Now, we have a situation where two referees are being left …

UP to now it has been a really damp squib of a championship. The gulf in class in a lot of the games has been very clear. A lot of people are saying that the winners of Cratloe and the ‘Bridge will see themselves through to the final. The big thing about Cratloe this year has been the three or four younger lads that have come in and really established themselves. Diarmuid Ryan at centre-back, Daithí Collins, Billy Connors and Rian Considine have really added to Cratloe, which they needed to do. They had become really one dimensional but now these three or four lads have spiced up the team and made them a little bit less predictable. I think the Cratloe match-ups are going to be important against the ‘Bridge. I thought they got it awfully wrong against Ballyea. Podge Collins on Tony Kelly, for the first 25 minutes was probably the losing of the game for them. Podge …