Johnny Murphy has had enough of it.
His fellow referees have had enough of it and it’s about time they took a stand. Half-time is the worst time for them.
They’ve just covered every blade of grass on the pitch for nothing but abuse from the sideline and then they blow the whistle and send the teams in for their 15 minute break.
For years the men in the middle were left out standing in the hail, the rain or the snow waiting on the teams to decide to return and they still are for club games all over the country.
In the bigger inter-county games the referees are afforded the luxury of their own room to take a few seconds to themselves but they’ll always be back out on the pitches waiting for the teams to emerge from the tunnel.
We saw it in both All-Ireland senior hurling semi-finals recently. In the first one in Croke Park, Donal Moloney and Gerry O’Connor held their Clare troops inside the sanctity of the four walls under the Cusack Stand for what felt like half an hour.
James Owens blew his whistle once, twice, three times to no response. Eventually the Banner boys broke from the team-talk for the second throw-in of the day.
Again, the following day both Cork and Limerick took an age to psyche themselves up for the second period while Paud O’Dwyer waited on them.
Johnny Murphy of Limerick was refereeing the All-Ireland minor hurling final between Kilkenny and Galway on Sunday. Himself and his Limerick linesmen probably didn’t mean to take a stand against teams taking all day on the interval but that doesn’t matter, because in leaving the 17-year-olds of Galway and Limerick waiting on them for once, they’d issued the players with a dose of their own medicine.
The lads on commentary duty for TG4 joked that the kettle took too long to boil for the refs.
Players waiting on ref to come out for second half of minor match.. there's a new one pic.twitter.com/SWCpmCupJW
— Niall McIntyre (@NiallMcintyre) August 19, 2018
They emerged business-like to ironic cheers from the crowd, but that didn’t matter, their job had been done.
No panic pic.twitter.com/XbRdxuy7uo
— Niall McIntyre (@NiallMcintyre) August 19, 2018
As for the hurling, Richie Mulrooney’s Cats got off to a flying start in GAA HQ. Cian Kenny was bossing it in midfield and the highly rated Ciaran Brennan picked off a beauty as they raced into an early 0-4 to 0-0 lead.
Galway steadied the ship, with Donal, the son of former Tipperary manager Eamon O’Shea taking the driving seat. His pace and drive caused endless problems for the Cats rearguard and his score-taking, both from open play and placed balls kept Galway ticking over.
Check out the half-time highlights from the Minor Hurling All-Ireland Final between Galway and Kilkenny! pic.twitter.com/y3706HsReT
— The GAA (@officialgaa) August 19, 2018
Kilkenny led by 0-10 to 0-9 at the break but the Tribesmen took over in the second period. They went onto win with seven to spare, 0-21 to 0-14 the final score as Jeffrey Lynskey won his second minor title in a row as Galway manager.
