A referee is there to apply the rules.
The rule is that a gaelic footballer must be wearing a gum shield at all times and the punishment is a yellow card. Meath referee David Gough issued Kildare player Eoin Doyle with a yellow card for breaching that rule on Sunday.
It so happened to be Doyle's second yellow card of the game, which meant he was sent off from the pitch. David Gough came in for criticism for his decision.
Don't hate the player, hate the game. Don't shoot the messenger boy. If you have an issue with this, you have an issue with the GAA rule-book. Not with David Gough.
Now Cian O'Neill's description of the situation, where the Kildare manager claimed the referee didn't give his centre back a legitimate chance to replace his gum-shield, doesn't paint the referee in the same positive light - but you'd have to question why Doyle wasn't wearing his mouth guard in the first place.
https://twitter.com/SportsJOE_GAA/status/967780739042435073
The claim that it was knocked out by a challenge doesn't really add up, because 1. It's extremely rare that a challenge would knock a gum shield out and 2. Couldn't he just have put it straight back on anyway?
O'Neill's claim was that the ball was kicked at Doyle in the meantime as he ran off looking for a gum shield. Doyle would have gotten lynched if he didn't contest that ball, but it's still harsh to play a blame game when we don't know the exchanges between referee and player or the ins and outs of the situation.
Meath man Cian Ward has played in many a club game under Gough's supervision in the past, and the Wolfe Tones club man is speaking from experience when he claims that it's something the man in the middle is very strict on. But he doesn't blame him for that.
"Gough is from Meath, he's refereed a number of games that I've been involved in and it is a thing that he's a stickler on. Every referee has some sort of a technical issue that they put emphasis on."
It has led to confusion in Royal County club games before, with one occasion really standing out for Ward.
"He has definitely done this before in club games in Meath. We had a league match where he sent a couple of our lads to the line to get gum-shields, to get it sorted and play goes on.
"He doesn't stop the whole game for it, he's not supposed to. We had a scenario where a player from our team, and a player from the opposition were trying to get keys to the dressing room to get a gum-shield from their kit-bag. So it was 14 a side while the game was going on."
Ward questions the players who get caught. It'd make for a much simpler life if they just adhered to the rules.
"The rule is you have to have a mouth-guard. Why do players not have a mouth-guard first of all?
"It's a completely bizzare scenario. You could say the referee could have stopped the play and let him get his mouth guard," he added.
You can listen to the mouth guard decision and much more from Cian, Wooly and Conan on Thursday's GAA Hour Show.
https://soundcloud.com/sportsjoe-gaa-hour/dubs-beat-mayoagain-kerrys-dodgy-defenseagain-gumshieldgate
