Time to fix hurling's broken and ignored black-card rule

Remember that rule the GAA introduced to punish cynical fouls that prevent goal-scoring opportunities?

If you don't, you’re not alone. It appears most of the country’s hurling referees have forgotten it exists as well.

Sin-bins and penalties for the offence have been non-existent in this year’s championship – the latest apparent escape coming for Clare’s Cian Nolan when he got hold of Wexford’s Lee Chin in the closing stages of Saturday's All-Ireland quarter-final.

Referee Colm Lyons awarded a 20-metre free that Chin tapped over for a point but as his side were trailing by three, a penalty might have helped them to force extra-time.

Some have read this as a simple case of an official failing to apply the rule, others as a marginal call he got right. But there is a deeper problem here - the regulation is so vague as to be almost unenforceable.

It is over a year since we wrote, in the wake of James Owens being lambasted for awarding a penalty against Clare’s Aidan McCarthy, that nobody seemed to understand it. It’s still as clear as mud.

First of all, the referee has to decide if he thinks there was a goal chance that was prevented by the foul. On the live edition of The Sunday Game, co-commentator Michael Duignan thought Chin did have one but analysts Davy Fitzgerald and Joe Canning felt other Clare defenders running back meant he did not.

Second, the regulation now specifies – since the furore over McCarthy being punished for a foul near the sideline – that "as a rule of thumb" (seriously) a player should not be considered to have a goal chance unless he is not only inside the 20m but also further than 25 metres from the sideline.

On The Sunday Game highlights show, Ursula Jacob, Dónal Óg Cusack and Liam Sheedy all believed Chin