Joe McQuillan leaves inter-county scene on a high

By John Harrington

Refereeing at the highest level is demanding on both mind and body, so it says a lot about Joe McQuillan’s durability as well as capability that he had such an impressive innings.

This year’s All-Ireland semi-final between Tyrone and Kerry was the Cavan native’s 178^th senior inter-county game to referee over the course of the past 24 years.

It was also his last, but only because he has reached the watershed age of 50 beyond which you can no longer be a member of the National Referees Panel.

He will be remembered as one of the best of his era, having refereed four senior All-Ireland finals, three Leinster finals, two Ulster finals, one Munster final, one All-Ireland U21 Final, and one All-Ireland club final.

Refereeing was something that found McQuillan rather than a vocation he purposely went after.

A talented footballer himself in his youth for Kill Shamrocks, McQuillan played for Cavan at U-16 level and also the county vocational schools team, but then at the age of 17 his playing career was cut short by a recurring shoulder injury.

Around that time Ladies Football was taking off in the parish and McQuillan was encouraged to take up refereeing, and that fork in the road moment ultimately brought him on a journey to the very top of the game that’s been hugely rewarding.

“I love refereeing,” says McQuillan. “I still enjoy it to this day as much as I did in the beginning.

“I especially love going out to do an U-16 or minor match during the week because they're just great games where it's all out football and there's no major tactics and it's all about who can just get the most scores. It's a great training session for myself.

“I like to be able to give the players as much as I can as well out of my performance. They're the games I love more than anything because you can really express yourself in those games and the young lads like to see you coming as well to referee them.

“It's great to be involved and stuck in the middle of it. You're still very much part of the game when you're refereeing.

“I loved playing and I love going to watch matches. So when you love football you love most things around it and I get a good auld buzz when I'm out there on the field and getting stuck into it and seeing two teams going at it. They'll appreciate me, I'll appreciate them as players, and there's just a mutual respect there.

“That's the buzz I get out of it. I know I'm not a bad referee and players like to see you coming and when you have all that put together it generally makes for a better game of football on the day.”

McQuillan’s attitude has always been that, on the field of play, respect should be a two-way street.

So, if you want players to respect you, then you have to reciprocate in kind. That’s why his approach has always been to explain his decisions to players rather than blank those who question them.

“Yeah, communication with players on the field is one of the key aspects of refereeing,” he says.

“I like to talk to players on the field, I like to be able to communicate different wee things.

“It makes things an awful lot simpler for everyone involved once you explain it and tell them why you did a certain thing.

“It brings a bit of common-sense to the whole thing. It mightn't be in the rule book but that’s a huge part of the whole thing, that wee common sense aspect.”

McQuillan believes the motivation for referees is much like it is for players – you want to perform to your full potential and experience what it’s like to do that on the biggest stage of all.

Refereeing four All-Ireland finals - Dublin v Kerry (2011), Dublin v Mayo (2013), Dublin v Mayo (2017), and Mayo v Tyrone (2021) – put McQuillan in a very elite bracket. David Coldrick is the only other current referee to have taken charge of as many finals.

“That's a buzz beyond any other,” says McQuillan. “All-Ireland Final Day with 82,000 in Croke Park is just amazing. It would put the hairs standing on the back of your neck. Croke Park is just a very special place when you're in there with a full house.

“You've been given the responsibility of taking control of a huge game and it's a huge honour to be asked to do that. The GAA puts their faith in the referee and the referee has to deliver back on the day. They're special days.

“The 2005 Leinster final was possibly the first time I ever refereed in Croke Park and for one of my umpires it was the first time he had ever even been in Croke Park. There was 82,000 there that year for the Leinster Final between Dublin and Laois.

“It was a one-point win for Dublin and it was an absolutely cracking game of ball. It was a full house and there was no Perspex screen in front of Hill 16 in those days. It was just incredibly noisy. They're the special days when you have a full house in Croke Park. You wouldn't give that away for anything.”

Refereeing is commonly perceived as a solitary pursuit, but they’ll tell you they’re very much part of a team.

The very best referees always have a well-drilled group of umpires to back them up, and McQuillan was no different.

Of his current quartet, Jimmy Galligan from the Killygarry club was with him from the very beginning, TP Gray joined in the nearly noughties, Ciaran Brady in 2008, and Mickey Lee in 2016, replacing Tommy O’Reilly who was there for around 10 years.

“I have a wonderful team of men with me, some of them since Day One,” says McQuillan. “A number of years ago there was some talk that they were looking at the possibility of appointing umpires, that there would be a pool of umpires and they would be appointed to games instead of referees bringing their own umpires.

“That's something I was certainly not in favour of because part and parcel of every game is going to the game with your umpires, the build up to the game, and the camaraderie you develop with your umpires. We had some wonderful years and I've been blessed to have so many good umpires with me who stuck with me for so many years.

“They're the lads behind the scenes that are never noticed or honoured in any way but the role they have in the game is so significant and they don't always get the respect they deserve. Players might get respect and referees might get respect but the umpires are very much the hidden heroes of the GAA.”

McQuillan is in a good position to judge the impact of the new FRC playing rules on Gaelic football given he referred at the highest level for the best part of quarter of a century before their introduction.

He had his doubts about them when they were first mooted, but he’s happy to have been proven wrong.

Rather than be an added burden for referees, he believes they’ve made officiating matches a lot less stressful.

“I was a wee bit apprehensive about the new rules coming in for my last year,” he admits. “I was thinking, 'why could they not wait one more year before they brought them in?!'

“I just didn't know how I would adapt to them. It was that unknown.

“But, in fairness to most referees in the country, club and county, they've adapted so well to the rules. In fairness, Jim Gavin and his team brought in a good package.

“To be honest, I never imagined it would work so well. But they have been hugely transformative. I know the two semi-finals and finals weren't the greatest, but we've had a wonderful championship.

“The games have been high-scoring which people like, and I have to say they have been easier to referee as well.

“It's cut out dissent and the solo and go has also been transformative. It just moves the game on so fast. Most players take the solo and go and they're gone, so they're out of a flashpoint area immediately.

“Since the introduction of cards in 1999 it's the first All-Ireland Football Final to have no card issued, as far as I know. If you look back at the card count all year it's down massively on last year's championship and the year before and the year before that.

“I think it was said at one of our recent referees meeting that there was only two straight red cards issued in the whole year.

“It certainly has cleaned up the game and the discipline end of thing has really tidied up which we're seeing at club level as well.”

There’s no guarantee that an inter-county refereeing career will end on a high, but McQuillan’s did.

Taking charge of an All-Ireland semi-final between such great rivals as Kerry and Tyrone in front of a heaving Croke Park isn’t a bad way to go out.

“This year was a building to an end because we all knew it was going to be my last year at inter-county,” he says.

“I wanted to make it as good a year as possible for myself. It's always hard to know what way your final year will go.

“Certainly you've no way of deciding what way it ends, but I couldn't have picked it to end in a better way than the way it did in the All-Ireland semi-final with two huge teams, Kerry and Tyrone, playing one another in a near full house in Croke Park.

“It was a nice way to finish it off. I'm the sort of person that sets themselves goals at the start of every year and at 50 I was trying to make myself as high up the list as I could for appointments. That would have been from fitness levels to getting my own attitude as right as I could.

“This year and in the last couple of years I've loved trying to match up to the young lads 10 and 15 years younger than me and be as good as them because they're the future of refereeing and I'm going out the door to the other side.

“I tried to put them under as much pressure as I could and put the GAA appointments committee in a scenario where they are choosing between me or a younger lad.

“That's what it's all about, you have to put yourself in the hat for these games. It's performance-based and I love being able to put my name in the hat and see where it goes from there.

“It was very, very special to finish off in Croke Park with my normal four umpires and with my family there too. It was a special, special day that will live long in the memory. I'll always remember coming off the field that day. Jarlath came down to meet me on the pitch.

“A lot of good people in the GAA that I've known this last 20 years came to meet me and players shook my hand coming off the field too because they knew it was probably my last game in Croke Park.

“It was sentimental, but at the same time I'm a realist and I know that everything comes to an end. I'm in favour of the rule that you can only referee at that level until you're 50. We'll move on. It's time to move over and let the young lads at it.”

Refereeing hasn’t just brought McQuillan to every corner of Ireland, he’s also officiated at games in Australia, China, continental Europe, the Middle East, and the USA.

He’s made great friends along the way, especially with fellow inter-county referees who share a special bond from operating in what can be an unforgiving crucible.

He’s well aware he hasn’t always been flavour of the month in certain quarters but that’s an occupational hazard in sport where there can only be one winning team and blame can come more quickly to some than acceptance.

“I'm sure I've made an enemy or two along the way, but the friends you make outweigh everything else,” says McQuillan.

“Paddy Collins from Westmeath said something once that's always stayed with me. He said if you can keep 50 per cent of the crowd happy at any one time you're probably doing a very good job. He's probably not a million miles wrong.

“It's been the most amazing journey with the most amazing people with me. Putting good people around you always helps because it's important to have good people around you and there was great support there also from Croke Park, provincial level, and your own county as well.

“The most important thing is never try to be anybody else, that's what I always say to young lads. You're your own person, don't try to emulate somebody else because you're not that person. The next man who comes along will be his own referee too so don't be trying to copy styles.

“You've got to do your own thing. Don't try to be somebody that you're not. And be courteous. Be friendly. It's not hard to do.

“I will miss it, I know that, but I won't be a million miles away from it.

“I'll not be lost to the GAA, I'll be still be very much involved in my own county. That's where it all beings and ends, at grassroots level.”