THE GAA have been forced to postpone unveiling Hawk-Eye technology at this weekend’s Leinster football championship quarter-finals, director general Páraic Duffy revealed yesterday.

The current trial period at Croke Park has brought up two recurring and significant problems.

Firstly, an accurate reading of whether a point has been scored is being disrupted by wind shaking the goal posts.

The second issue is the speed of delivering a judgment. It took 25 seconds to inform the referee on a questionable point during April’s National Football League final between Cork and Mayo.

Hawk-Eye has been installed in Croke Park on a two-year pilot basis.

“I suppose, to be honest, it has proved to be more of a technical challenge than we anticipated originally,” said Duffy. “Clearly, football and hurling are different games to tennis and cricket.”

The obvious conclusion is stumps and a net are not disrupted by the weather like goalposts several metres higher off the ground.

“The plan was that we would have started this Sunday but we are just not ready to do that,” Duffy continued. “I can’t say it will happen this year.

“It is not going to happen until we are absolutely certain it is working but is still the aim to get it working this summer.”

Developed by UK engineers at Roke Manor Research Ltd in Hampshire, Hawk-Eye, purchased by Sony in March 2011, is a computer system that tracks the trajectory of the ball and displays a record of its most statistically likely path as a moving image.

Duffy is adamant the current “glitches” are not the fault of the Hawk-Eye system itself, although the company’s reputation is under scrutiny considering they have also reached an advanced stage of their trial period with Fifa.

It will be tested at Wembley Stadium tomorrow for the England versus Belgium friendly.

Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal for England against Germany at the 2010 World Cup was a major incident in soccer, while several scoring controversies in Gaelic games have led to referees and their umpires being heavily criticised.

An example is Ian Ryan’s late point for Limerick last July that knocked Wexford out of the championship.

“There is no blame to anybody here. Possibly none of us realised how big a challenge it would be. Because it is so accepted now in cricket and tennis you would assume that it would be easy. But it isn’t easy.

“Every game in Croke Park is a high-profile game so we just can’t afford to get it wrong. I’d prefer to go another year rather than try a system that isn’t 100 per cent. We are still hoping it will happen this year, but I can’t say for certain.”

Duffy confirmed the GAA are not in consultation with Fifa as the specific requirements for hurling or football and soccer are not compatible. The latter is only concerned with clarification on goal line incidents.

“There are two elements: how it works and how it is relayed to the people watching at home. The TV coverage is working out really well so that’s one positive.

“The last game it was tried out was the league final. One of the problems was the signal coming back to the referee. That there was a delay was one of the key things; the referee was having to wait too long for the information from Hawk-Eye and that’s no use; it has to be instant.

“We are absolutely certain it can work out in time but it is not ready for this weekend. Until it is perfect we will not roll it out.”

Increasing the height of goal posts is another consideration but a potential stumbling block to adopting Hawk-Eye nationwide is the estimated annual cost of €500,000.

Meanwhile, on the ongoing Seán Johnston transfer from Cavan to Kildare saga, Duffy conceded the situation needs to be permanently sorted out quickly. “I appreciate things need to be brought to a conclusion fairly soon.”