What if there was no video evidence?
What if the camera-man hadn’t positioned himself behind the flight of the ball?
Then Galway would have been a point down at half time and who knows, maybe the second half would have went a different way.
But the truth is that when it comes to hawk-eye there are now any number of who knows and what-ifs.
Thankfully we did have video evidence to back up the umpires and to show that, contrary to the score detecting arrows, Shane Walsh’s 45 had in fact spilt the posts in two. But it shouldn’t come to that.
Those arrows were wide but Shane Walsh was on the money. How many times have we trusted it blindly down through the years?
Is there a problem with HawkEye? Shane Walsh's free late in the half was deemed wide by the technology at Croke Park, but the replay would suggest otherwise
📱 https://t.co/AhGH0dO2Ff
📺 https://t.co/ced90fBubg
📻 https://t.co/2SRRKdgjzu pic.twitter.com/NAimqXO9P2— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 9, 2022
Take Conor Glass’ shot ten minutes earlier where we had nothing to go on only the score detection technology. That looked over but after a Hawkeye intervention, it was waved wide.
Take last year’s Leinster hurling semi final where a Hawkeye decision cost Wexford the game. Conor McDonald’s goal may have been correctly ruled out but it may have been incorrectly ruled out too. And that’s the problem.
There were some more issues in this years Leinster hurling final and when the GAA are paying, as reported by the Irish Examiner, between €7000 and €8000 per match day for the services of the Uk based and Sony owned company, there would have to be some serious questions asked.
"That is scandalous. Hawkeye are being paid big money."https://t.co/9UV45eLSF7
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) July 9, 2022
Fergal McGill was on the phone yesterday but he’ll be on a mad one today.
Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. are relied upon in a host of sports, from tennis to cricket to badminton and to soccer. They will be in charge of the men’s Wilmbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Nick Kyrgios today but they’ll have nothing to do with the big game in Croke Park.
And right now, to be fair about it, that’s exactly how it should be.
