If a good day for a referee is to end it without being noticed, the Hawkeye official can't really hide his work's light under a bushel. That was especially true last Sunday when, with the game teetering and every shot a potential match-ender, Kevin Moran aimed at the Canal End goal in the 68th minute and shot high into the Davin Stand.
When the white flag went up, we marked it down – Waterford 0-24 Kilkenny 0-20.
In the control box under the big screen at the back of the Nally Stand, two people instantly knew what the rest of us didn't. Waterford weren't out the gap just yet. They weren't anywhere near it. The Hawkeye rep turned to Dickie Murphy who got on the radio to referee James Owens. "There's a problem with that point – send it up to Hawkeye," said Murphy.
Sorry, lads. Waterford 0-23 Kilkenny 0-20. Less than a minute later, Walter Walsh had the ball in the net at the other end. Within half an hour, Brian Cody was chuckling at the thought of Hawkeye bailing Kilkenny out again.
“We don’t have shares in it, anyway, if that’s what you’re asking,” he cracked.
Technological gizmo
Four seasons in and if nothing else, the GAA’s most conspicuous technological gizmo is certainly paying its way. While it’s pure happenstance that Hawkeye’s two most high-profile calls in senior games since its arrival in 2013 have presaged replays, it obviously does no harm when it comes to washing its face financially. A drawn All-Ireland final, a drawn All-Ireland semi-final. Good thing we’re not a cynical people.
Murphy is one of a rotating pool of former officials who oversee the system on matchdays. He’ll be in Semple Stadium tonight for the replay and if he never has to get involved he will enjoy his evening just fine, thanks very much. Last Sunday was plenty busy for one week.
“There were 45 points scored on Sunday so that’s 45 decisions to be made. Now, plenty of them were nailed on over the bar so they’re not that difficult when you add in the wides, but you’re constantly going. You have to be on your toes.
“I’m always watching the umpire after a shot goes in to see what he’s going for. When he went for the flag with [the Kevin Moran] one, Hawkeye was saying it was wide so I got on the radio to James and said he should throw it to Hawkeye.
“You have to be alive to these things the whole time. In fairness, the Hawkeye operator was straight onto it so we were able to catch it, which is what the system is for. The big thing it was brought in for was to get the right decision.
“Okay, not every Sunday is the same and there’d be less to do on other days. But it was all go, there was points going up and down the whole time. In fairness to the umpires, they got just about every one of them right. Forty-four out of 45 isn’t bad going.”
Murphy says the Moran wide was the third time this summer Hawkeye has overruled a score and pulled up a flag-waving umpire. One was in the replay of the Christy Ring final between Meath and Antrim. Another was by Dean Rock in the Leinster football final between Dublin and Westmeath. But when they’re early in the game, they tend to melt into their surroundings.
Murphy refereed four All-Ireland hurling finals in the 1990s, including three in four years from 1995. The Hawkeye gig has been an unexpected coda to his career, one that landed him in the centre of the most dramatic ending to any season in 2014. When John O’Dwyer’s last-puck free in that year’s final left everyone wondering what was going to happen next, Murphy knew the answer before the rest of us.
“I wasn’t the first person to know, I was the second. The chap from Hawkeye was the first man – I was only the second. That was serious drama that day. It was so tight and nobody knew until it came through from Hawkeye. If the ball hits the virtual line at all, it’s wide and that’s what happened there. But that’s what it’s there for. Everything is above reproach.”
He’ll do the replay tonight in Thurles – where the system is a little slower than in Croke because of the different composition of the stadium. The decision takes a little longer to come through, which can cause a certain amount of rustling in the crowd.
The fiasco with the Limerick minors in 2013 aside though, there hasn’t been much to get annoyed about. The Hawkeye experiment has been almost exclusively positive.
One small Irish Times bugbear though – the signal.
Surely to God they can come up with a way of telling the world they’re going to Hawkeye that doesn’t so closely resemble the signalling of a wide. A red flag or something? Stand on one leg, even?
“Yeah, I know,” concedes Murphy.
“They’re told to start at the bottom and make the box signal from the bottom up rather than from the top down.
“That’s the protocol – you start from the belly-button and make a box going up the way. But yeah, some people can get mixed up as to whether he’s signalling for a wide or looking for Hawkeye. I’d accept that.”
