All jokes aside, Alan Kelly never referees a single competitive game involving us. Same goes for Anthony Buttimer (I know, we're lucky!).
Why then are Dublin-based refs so often assigned to our games against Dublin opposition? If the refs are assumed to be neutral, it should be consistent and there should be as much chance of Alan Kelly reffing one of our games versus Shamrock Rovers as Rob Rogers.
I personally would go with the philosophy of allowing any ref to officiate a given fixture, we must assume that they are professional enough to do the job right. Ireland is too small to be particularly picky. But if that means Rob Rogers doing a game in Tallaght, then Alan Kelly should be allowed to do one in Cork.
My problem isn't that I think there's hometown bias, it's the blatent inconsistency of it.
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