The comedian Billy Connolly claims there is no such thing as bad weather – only the wrong clothes. Would he have the same view of officials on the GAA pitch, I wonder? No bad refs, only inappropriate decisions?

Each week since this year's Championship began, we have had bad judgements and mistakes made by referees and in some cases this cost teams winning their respective games. My advice to the GAA is this: Forget about Experimental Rules, put the time into getting the referees to correctly apply the existing rules and if they don't, get rid of them and get others who will. The rules are not the problem.

Last Sunday was no exception. The major talking point after the Wicklow/Westmeath game in Tullamore was centred around the referee Joe McQuillan from Cavan. How he left the seriously injured Wicklow player Damien Power lying on the ground for so long without stopping the play, as he is required to do so under the rules, requires some explanation. It was clear to everybody that the Wicklow man was in a lot of pain.

There is no excuse for this, given the fact that there was a stoppage in play while Power lay on the ground – Wicklow had sent the ball wide. Despite this McQuillan allowed Westmeath take the kickout while the medics attended to the Wicklow fullback on the field. To add to Wicklow's misery, Conor Lynam – Damien Power's direct opponent – took advantage of the referee's non application of the rule regarding serious injury and scored a point. From Wicklow's point of view this was a disaster as the game ended in normal time in a draw with Westmeath winning by three points in extra time .

I do not agree with Tommy Lyons who partly absolved McQuillan on the Sunday Game by pointing out that, "last year we had a lot of this diving with fellows lying down on the ground... I think the ref was unlucky."

The referee is duty bound to ensure that he is always fully alert to any situation where there is a potentially serious injury to a player and that play is stopped immediately so that the medical personnel can treat the player on the field or he can be removed from the field without the obvious danger of play continuing around them. His team of officials should also be alert to this and advise him if he happens to miss it. A player's safety must always come first. No ifs and no buts about it.

Of course if a player is feigning injury, which wasn't the case on Sunday, then the referee has the authority to caution him or order him off for a second cautionable foul.

Wicklow missed a penalty as well. It wasn't helped by the fact that the referee failed to penalise the Westmeath goalkeeper Gary Connaughton who was well off his line before Tony Hannon struck his spotkick. As a goal was not scored, the referee should have allowed the penalty kick to be retaken. This did not happen and Wicklow lost out. Yet he was able to pull up Leighton Glynn for a throw ball four seconds later when he had a less clear view than he had of the penalty. The rule book is not à la carte, it must be applied.

Unfortunately it is often true that in close games it's the referees who decide who wins through bad decisions.