Important hurling news: sin bin proposal soundly defeated

The black card/sin bin will remain confined to Gaelic football as the motion to introduce it to hurling was soundly defeated at GAA’s Annual Congress in Croke Park this morning.

With no speakers in favour of it and Antrim chairman Ciarán McCavana claiming it would be as welcome in his country as Joe Brolly on The Sunday Game, it was expected to fail and ultimately received just 18% of delegates’ support.

Playing rules committee chairman David Hassan highlighted that in a study of 20 games in last year’s All-Ireland senior hurling championship there was an average of 26 fouls per game in which almost half the fouls (12) could be considered cynical in nature.

Across those 20 games, there were 19 professional fouls. Hassan acknowledged there was a wide spectrum of opinion on the proposal but concluded: “We should conflate what people want with what the game (of hurling) needs.”

Cork’s motion to apply replays to All-Ireland semi-finals that finish level at the end of normal time was defeated with just 27% of delegates backing it. Put forward by St Ita’s, their idea was opposed by Connacht secretary John Prenty who said more replays would take away from the certainty of the fixtures calendar and would be a retrograde step.