According to McStay, the extra attention afforded to championship encounters make it the “acid test” for the rule which was introduced at the beginning of this year’s national league campaign.

He also claimed that a number of cynical fouls went unpunished during the league campaign.

“The extra cameras and attention on games will have a bearing. The debate will quickly turn to ‘Why weren’t black cards issued?’ ‘Why are yellows being distributed in lieu of black cards?’” the Sunday Game pundit said.

“That will be the big challenge for the officials. In so much as they can, they will have to standardise it and get consistency otherwise there’ll be mayhem for the championship. It won’t be acceptable during the championship that decisions we don’t see on camera during the league are let off, that won’t happen,” he added.

McStay went on to vice his support for the black card scheme and said that he had been impressed with it so far.

Both McStay and fellow pundit Tomás Ó Sé pondered whether teams would drop players deeper to act as additional defenders during the championship, in contrast to the tactics deployed throughout much of this season’s league campaign.

“My own personal view on it is that players are half afraid to commit to serious challenges, so those players who are well able to run like Darran O’ Sullivan, Mark Lynch and Paul Kerrigan will attack a lot more; they’ll make a lot of those runs because they know well that if they’re taken down it’s possibly a black card.

“Will defences set up differently? I’m not sure. I’d be interested to see will defences drop a man or two back in championship which we haven’t seen to date…championship will tell a lot, I don’t think they’ll change much more than what they’re doing at the moment,” said Ó Sé.

The introduction of the black card has so far been heralded largely as a success and been credited with an increase in scores during the league campaign.