TG4 brought fans closer to the action than ever before as they attached a live microphone to the referee during their live coverage of the final of the Kerry senior hurling championship.
John O'Halloran is the name of the referee in question that took charge of today's final. At various stages throughout TG4's broadcast of the match, audio of O'Halloran explaining his decisions to players was relayed to the audience at home.
Fans have longed to be privy to conversations between referees and players for years. Unsurprisingly, TG4's decision to 'mic-up' the ref for today's game has gone down a treat with GAA fans.
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"It’s great to hear refs mic on tv to understand the decisions they’re making," said Gary on Twitter.
John writes, "This is class, more of it pls."
While Sam Tweets, "This is fantastic. Would love to see it implemented for all televised games immediately."
Due to the complicated nature of the GAA rulebook, fans have always been interested in how referees come to a decision. This groundbreaking initiative allows fans to finally understand what goes through a refs mind when it's decision time.
Other sports like soccer have also long desired to have access to referee conversations both with players and with fellow officials. Many feel that VAR checks for example, would be far more palatable to take if fans knew how a decision had been made.
Rugby has always been the standard bearer in this regard, with conversations between referees, touch judges and TMO's broadcast to fans at home for many years now.
Hopefully initiatives like this from TG4 become more commonplace in the GAA in the near future. As for today's match, Causeway got the better of Ballyduff after extra-time on a scoreline of 2-15 to 0-16.
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