However, access to the real time audio for the televised and streamed matches has been expanded and last week permission was granted by Croke Park for this past weekend’s live hurling fixtures. In Ennis on Sunday, RTÉ production team, commentary team and pundits were able to listen in to Liam Gordon’s microphone. GAA+ have the same benefits and during their coverage of Saturday’s Cork-Kerry Munster SFC semi-final in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, it was mentioned that they had lost the audio for Seán Brady’s sending off in extra-time. For last October’s interprovincial football matches, the first to be played under the experimental rules, the words of the referees were relayed to the TV audiences in real-time. However, the GAA have stopped short of allowing the footage to be broadcast in league or championship games. Speaking last month, leading Gaelic football referee David Coldrick called for his and his colleagues’ audio to be transmitted in broadcasts as is in the case in rugby. Meath man Coldrick was recorded during his officiating of the 2015 Dublin-Kerry All-Ireland final for a documentary. “We need more help collectively with our communication skills,” he told BBC’s GAA Social. “Talking about 2015, how that hasn’t happened 10 years on Is just beyond me. “It doesn’t take a huge amount to actually get someone in on a regular enough basis and get every referee's abilities communication-wise and style up to the standard that it needs to be at in order to be able to allow that kind of commentary through to people on TV and then in your own houses. “I think it’s too easy a way out. Actually, a lot of referees, there’s 40 or thereabouts on the football panel, I would say at least three-quarters of them at the level because you have to communicate on the field. It’s just the way things are and should be.” Kieran Donaghy, whose claim that he was eye-gouged by Philly McMahon was caught on Coldrick’s microphone in the 2015 final, later raised questions about referees wearing microphones. “I don’t think a ref should be reffing a big game, knowing that he is mic’d up. Just for the mental side, they have enough to be worrying about on the field without worrying about if I say this or I say that.”