Joe's Moan!

Dungannon Swift’s manager Joe McAree was airing the opinion recently that the ‘transfer window’ shouldn’t apply to Irish league clubs. Joe, in his wisdom, allowed that clubs such as Dungannon were at a disadvantage when players picked up lengthy suspensions. Surely this was one of the reasons for introducing the ‘window’ system, as it would encourage teams to play the game, as it is meant to be played, fairly and without malice, instead of the ‘win at all costs’ attitude which mean players fall foul of the referee’s notebook. Realistically this does not stop players committing the professional foul when a player looks likely to score, but it does in my opinion make players think before they act. We are of course dependant on referees to deliver these cautions fairly and without bias and herein lies the real problem. During the County Antrim Shield semi-final last week, we witnessed this bias at work first hand. Larne substitute Wilson, committed a not only late but violent tackle on United midfielder Gary Haveron. Referee Davey Malcolm, who it must be said had an otherwise decent game, merely talked to the culprit, instead of the mandatory yellow card which these sort of tackles generally warrant. Then in the 89th minute United substitute Gerard Rowe committed a late but not vicious tackle on a Larne player and was promptly booked. Without showing any prejudice at all I believe they were probably both justifiable cautions, but when the first one wasn’t a yellow, then surely the second definitely wasn’t. As the old saying goes, ‘justice not only has to be done, it has to be seen to be done’. But to get back to Joe’s point about leaving clubs in the Irish league outside this European law, I think this is a non-starter. If clubs here want to take part in European competitions and believe me they do, then I’m afraid we have to abide by the rules. The rules are there for a reason, mainly to protect the weaker clubs, who generally play the game more fairly than their more successful and stronger teams. Short term fixes rarely work anyway and Joe has ample evidence of that, hasn’t he just released the ‘much travelled’ Kevin Keegan after a short stint at Stangmore Park. I’m afraid Joe you’ll just have to ‘soldier on’, after all that’s why managers get paid the ‘big bucks’, not just for managing teams when things are going well, but for coming up with the ‘goods’ when everything seems to be going wrong!