MICK BOHAN HAS often cut a frustrated figure post-match.
Time and time again, the Dublin ladies football manager has called for change, stating at one point last year that the rules “aren’t fit for purpose“.
It’s something he will talk about at length, hammering home his opinion and taking issue with one rule, which states “there shall be no deliberate bodily contact,” in particular.
Now preparing for Saturday’s Leinster final against Meath, Bohan and his side were left frustrated the last time the rivals met in their provincial round-robin clash at Parnell Park three weeks ago.
They fell to a one-point defeat, with Emma Duggan’s second-half goal, which came after a dubious tackle by Vikki Wall on Sinéad Goldrick, proving decisive.
“The goal was a huge turning point. How that stood is beyond me,” Bohan told reporters at yesterday’s TG4 All-Ireland ladies football championship launch.
“That’s not moaning, I just thought we got bad treatment. And that can’t be. In a game where two teams are willing to do what they’re willing to do, it has to be a level playing field from that end. And I don’t think we got that.”
Asked (once again) whether a rule change would help referees and whether he sees things changing any time soon, Bohan gave typically in-depth responses.
“I’ve said this as of the last five years,” he began. “If we’re allowing contact, we’re allowing contact – for everybody.
“The game isn’t the same as it was a decade ago, I think back to the last time I was involved in 2003, I even looked at old pictures and the jerseys [are] hanging off them. They look like babies. Look at them now.
“When I look at them every evening at training, the condition they’re in… we want them to go out there and play at 100-miles-an-hour and the minute there’s a bit of contact, there’s a free? It just doesn’t make sense. And it’s frustrating.
“It doesn’t have to be a major change. I understand that people don’t want it the same as the lads’ game – I don’t want to see it the same as the lads’ game. It’s fast and it’s furious, but there has to be some amount of contact allowed. I just think we need to look at it a little bit better.”
“I’ve tried to try to speak on it,” he continued. “I think sometimes the LGFA [think] that when you’re speaking out that you’re actually giving out. That’s not the point. If you don’t listen to people who were in the arena, well then who do you listen to?
“I’m telling you what I’m listening to from my group, but I’m also telling you what I’m seeing as a coach. I think it would be a better spectacle [with rule changes]. The tackle is still ill-defined. Every single referee that I speak to has a different interpretation of the tackle.
“And I know, coming into the summer series and an All-Ireland final, the rules will not be the same as they were in Parnell Park or Navan. They will not be the same because they won’t allow that lack of contact in front of 50,000 people. You can’t have that then, right? It should be consistent — and that makes sense, doesn’t it? So that’s not moaning or giving out, this is the spectacle that people want to see. Let them see it. Just a small tweak in the tackle. The whole thing stated is you can’t make contact until the ball is released, even when the ball is released and you make contact, they’re giving frees.
Look, I think you see it. But I also think it should be reported on. If you go back to Parnell Park, I’d be frustrated after the game. When I read the report of the game, it should reflect the game that I saw. I think we still have a bit to go in the women’s game on that – that we actually report what we see.”
Bohan went on to tell the huddle of reporters assembled that he thinks “we say nice things [about ladies football clashes] whereas we report on what we see in the lads’ game,” using the Gearóid Hegarty double-yellow card incident from the Limerick-Clare Munster hurling clash as an example.
“That was reported on wholesale, exactly what took place. And rightly so,” he added. “Even if it’s a wrong opinion, whether somebody was feigning or not feigning or whatever… we don’t do that in the women’s game. We nearly avoid it.
“It should be [reported]. They’re ready for that. They’re ready to be told, ‘That was a nasty challenge,’ or, ‘That should have been more…’ they’re ready for it. They’re doing everything else that the lads are doing, why wouldn’t they be… for me, that would be a lack of respect thing, that you don’t do that.
“You put yourself out there to play. The difference between the players and all the rest of us is they take the gamble by crossing the white line. Part of that gamble is that you open yourself to everybody the minute you go to play. So report on it.”
