On Saturday evening, a rare good game of football broke out. Having said that, it was tactical too and sometimes referees struggle for concentration when that happens but David Gough was on his toes from the word “go”.
Before I go into the meat and veg of the game, I have to mention Rian O’Neill’s catch at the end. Fortunate for him and Armagh, they cleared the lines but had O’Neill touched the ball in falling to the ground or even overcarried it in the small rectangle, Kerry would have been awarded a penalty as any foul, even technical, in that area is a spot kick.
Imagine how the Armagh support would have reacted to that – Gough would have been public enemy No. 1 if Kerry were to have struck a penalty goal and committed daylight robbery – but O’Neill was excellent while falling in keeping the ball from touching the turf.
Gough was technically sharp on Saturday. He caught Kerry defenders twice holding jerseys off the ball and penalised both teams for not having their defenders outside the “D” at kick-outs.
An early yellow card for a loose hand by Paul Geaney on Aaron McKay was justified. Peter McGrane later upended Geaney and was booked but it happened outside the small rectangle and Gough was right to award a free and nothing more.
Gough was also on the ball in penalising David Clifford for stopping a defender going up the field. When Clifford was preparing to take a free later, he had time to warn Clifford, although they were all smiles later as HawkEye was called to confirm Clifford had scored a point.
Gough had a fine game and for a period of about three or four minutes in the second half he gave no free and it contributed to the game coming alive. It added to the excitement and the thrills and spills.
If there was a small negative, his fitness levels aren’t where they were four or five years ago. That might sound rich coming from me but he would probably know that himself. He also deploys a roving umpire at both ends, which I’m not in favour of and they were completely out of position for a couple of scores.
In the Tailteann Cup final, Brendan Griffin allowed the game to flow and maybe overdid it at times but it hardly affected the game. On one occasion, a ball hit a post and fell down behind the goal for a definite point and yet the umpires looked for HawkEye. That was one flaw in an otherwise strong outing for him.
On to Sunday and I must admit I was full sure that Ciarán Thompson had been punished severely for touching the ball on the ground for the free that put Galway into the lead for the last time.
However, Brendan Cawley was correct. I consulted the GAA Official Guide afterwards and the rule states that any player who falls or is knocked to the ground may fist or pass the ball away on the ground. Yet Thompson was neither pushed or fouled, received the ball when he was already on the ground and fouled it in getting it away.
Cawley had an excellent outing although he was helped a lot by the lack of physicality in the game. It’s so often the same in semi-finals when players are on their best behaviour and want to avoid missing finals. It’s not just referees being reluctant to rule them out of the biggest days of their lives.
There were some lovely points scored in the first 45 minutes or so but the teams weren’t engaging with each other a whole amount, which made it a handy one for Cawley.
One of Cawley’s umpires did let him down, though, and two blatant wides into the Davin Stand were missed by him. There was no question of Matthew Tierney being in the square for Paul Conroy’s freak goal in the first half and Donegal goalkeeper Shaun Patton couldn’t blame anybody but himself for conceding it.
Cawley has put himself in a really good position for the final. I know semi-final appointments don’t usually get the big gig two weeks later and Johnny Murphy didn’t referee a semi-final and is in for the hurling decider but Fergal Horgan was an exception a few years back.
It may work out for Cawley that he is a Leinster man while Seán Hurson, who refereed the Kerry-Galway final of two years ago, is from a neighbouring county of Armagh. Last year’s final man in the middle Gough along with Conor Lane and David Coldrick are other contenders but it looks right now to be between Cawley and Hurson.
I might get a chance to expand on Murphy’s appointment for the Clare-Cork final later in the week. There was a sense from early in the week that the Limerick man was going to be favoured ahead of Liam Gordon. The fussiness, as I have mentioned, is a worry especially when this has the makings of being a great final.
