On Monday afternoon, Fermanagh manager, Kieran Donnelly may have cooled off but the sense of frustration and anger at Sunday’s decision to rule Sean Quigley’s legitimate point wide was still very much simmering.
The Roslea man very definitely put Fermanagh two points clear going into the final five minutes but the umpire and match officials deemed it wide.
A decision that incensed Donnelly so much he got a yellow card himself from Galway referee Thomas Murphy.
“In this day and age, with all the officials on the sideline being so fussy on managers wearing bibs, focusing on how many people are standing on sidelines, that they can’t see a ball is over the bar or not. I think that is the most frustrating thing, if there’s going to be six officials at the game and the whole crowd could see that it was a point, how that was missed? he asks.
“The umpire, I feel sorry for him in that it’s not an easy job and sometimes where he’s standing , the other umpire should’ve probably assisted him but the linemen and the fourth officials all saw it and for none of them to call it. They’re very quick to call other things going on.
“We just feel really hard done by that none of them could hold their hand up and say it was a point when the whole crowd could see it, it wasn’t even close, it was a clear cut point. That’s the most disappointing thing about it; some of them definitely saw it and just didn’t want to radio it onto the pitch for some reason.”
It wasn’t the only decision that went against Fermanagh on the day but it was the one that broke the camel’s back.
“You’d nearly think there was something else going on, the way the game was going and the amount of calls we had against us” says Donnelly.
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