WILL Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, both owner of and power forward for the Flint Michigan Tropics in the Basketball comedy film Semi Pro. During a game, the match referee, Father Pat, calls a foul against Jackie. Jackie responds, ‘F**k you father Pat, I’ll murder your family’, at which point Father Pat rightly feels Jackie has crossed the line and ejects him from the game!

Derry played Kildare in Round Three of the Christy Ring Cup this year. A ball went over the line and I shouted ‘Derry ball’, which seemed a fairly common and innocuous thing to shout at a game. A sideline official ran 40 meters back up the line to confront me about my behaviour.

As he was threatening to have me put off from the line, I was wondering had I blurted out a Jackie Moon styled mouthful without realising it. I hadn’t. He asked what my role was in the hope that it would give him some scope to reprimand me further. I said I was the hurl carrier (who are permitted to be on the line with the hurls), and he angrily demanded that I go stand beside the hurls. I had to take one half yard step to the right to get close to the hurls and the brief and needless episode was over.

This was a common theme this year. Officials seemed very intent on being confrontational with players and mentors, often over the most minor things. I’m not sure if this is the directive from Croke Park but to me it was unnecessary. Acting in this way only serves to antagonize people who are already highly charged through being involved with teams in a competitive environment.

Surely it would be better for match officials to try to foster an environment where everyone feels they are trying to officiate the game as facilitators as opposed to being there to knock everyone into line at every opportunity.

I have a chequered history with officials. I often got tied up moaning and complaining at referees during games when I was playing. Invariably these were games where I was playing poorly.

If there is a hurling referee in Derry reading this, he is surely thinking, I must have played an awful lot of bad games. Normally when I was playing well, I hadn’t time to worry about referees and was focusing on the job I was meant to be doing, namely, hurling.

Now, being involved in coaching, it is very frustrating to watch players spending their time arguing with referees. I know from personal experience that when players are doing this they are not focusing on their game, it affects their performance and the performance of the team.

Referees are only human. Human nature ensures that if you complain or abuse a person enough, they will surely turn against you. I have refereed a few games myself over the years.

Once I refereed an u-18 match, where from the first minute, a player complained and gave out about every decision and after every play in the game. My honest thought at the time was, someone is going to have to attempt to kill that fella before he gets a free here. I know that isn’t right, but human nature is what it is.

Shouting at referees from the side line is also seriously counterproductive. As above, it will inevitably turn referees against your team. It also sends a very poor message to your players, i.e., that it is not a lack of effort, or our performance levels that might be the problem, it’s actually the referee who is the issue. This gives players a crutch, someone to blame and an easy excuse to surrender.

A well-known hurling referee in Derry, Eddie Nash, a top man who is currently helping to drive the introduction of hurling in the Doire Trasna club in Derry City was refereeing a game in Dungiven one morning.

Eddie arrived wearing his referee’s jersey and an outrageous pair of Bermuda shorts. Eddie wasn’t having one of his better games and a few decisions had Kevin Lynch’s manager Davy McCloskey exasperated. Another call went against Dungiven, Davey cracked, and shouted ‘Eddie, Eddie, Eddie’, looking his attention, to unleash all of his frustration. Eddie, equally annoyed, shouted back ‘what Davy?’ Just as the words were leaving his lips, Davy changed his mind, rowed back from the anger and shouted ‘where did you get them shorts?’ There was a burst of laughter from the sideline. Eddie laughed too and promptly went back to making a complete balls of the game.

Old habits die hard and of course I still find myself complaining at decisions during games. I genuinely do try not to do it as much but know it is something I would still need to improve on. I also feel that most people involved with teams, playing or coaching, would like to see match officials move away from a confrontational approach to refereeing matches. There is definite room for improvement on all sides.