Gaelic football referee David Coldrick reveals that he felt "let down" by the GAA when he failed a fitness test and was not given an opportunity to redo it that year.
Coldrick is one of the longest serving and highly regarded match officials in the sport, but back in 2023, he failed the standard yo-yo test that all officials have to do before the championship.
Each referee has to reach a required standard in the test, but on this occasion, Coldrick was carrying an injury that he had not fully recovered from and he felt told the BBC GAA Social podcast that there should have been an opportunity for him to do it again when he had recovered.
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"I did (fail a fitness test). This was two years ago, and I was appointed to referee in New York for the first round of the Connacht championship.
"When you are appointed for that - basically I wouldn't have been around for the actual fitness test here in Ireland with the group, so I needed to do it earlier.
"There was a question mark about if I needed to do it earlier, or could it wait until I got home, but there was pressure put on that I needed to do the fitness test before travelling to New York.
"I picked up an injury during my last league game up in Donegal, and I was struggling to get my fitness back, it was a calf (injury).
"I felt that I had no option but to do the test, and I failed the test. I wasn't surprised that I failed the test, because I just didn't feel like I had come back enough from the injury."
Despite failing the test, Coldrick was still selected to referee the Connacht match, and soon his name was all over the papers, and his reputation took a hit.
After so many years of servitude to the sport, the county Meath native felt he was let down by the association.
"The test I did was a couple of days (before the game) so I wasn't taking off the game, but there was a lot of stuff happening behind closed doors about whether or not I should be taken off.
"These things always come out - it's me like, I've done three All-Irelands, I have been around a long time, and he's failed a fitness test, and what's more is that he's failed a itness test before he's meant to do a championship game, so he shouldn't do a championship game.
"I obviously didn't like that I failed the fitness test, but the problem I had was that I wasn't going to be given a second chance.
"Where in life do you not get a second chance, and I just felt like after 20 plus years of service to the GAA, that this was how I was treated?
"Jesus you should not have brought this up, but that was the lowest point in my referring career obviously and it was splattered all over papers.
"It took me a while to even get back looking at Gaelic football matches because it was just very difficult, I did eventually do one or two lines in the year one, but I felt very let down by the association, it has to be said."
Although Coldrick did run the line on a few occasions that season, he wa snot given the opportunity to referee again, but has since proved that he is more than capable of doing so, and that the failed test was done to his injury more than anything else.
