Gareth McKinless of Derry reacts to being shown a red card by referee Brendan Cawley during the All-Ireland SFC Round 1 match at Pearse Stadium in Galway. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Derry’s Gareth McKinless is facing a two-game ban for his challenge on Galway’s Damien Comer that earned him a red card in this evening’s All-Ireland SFC group one game in Salthill.
If referee Brendan Cawley reports it as a stamp, McKinless can expect a minimum suspension for such an infraction which would put him out of the remaining group games.
Conor Doherty and Eoin McEvoy were missing through injury, as was Padraig McGrogan who is out for the season with a cruciate ligament tear, wiping out all of Derry’s best half-back options for the game.
On top of that Derry manager Mickey Harte revealed that Conor Glass was sick during the week, impacting his preparations.
“I think it is still a very credible performance with 14 men, considering Conor Glass was under the weather too. He was sick the last few days, you have to factor that in as well and consider the people we were missing from our team, starters the last couple of years, seriously good starters. It was a massive fight from the people that we had available to us,” said Harte.
On the sending off Harte said he hadn’t seen what had happened off the ball but never felt it was a free (for a push by McKinless on Comer) in the first place.
“I didn’t see it and I’ll tell you another thing – I don’t believe it was a foul in the first place. There should have been no free in the first place and I don’t know what happened after that. I thought something had happened off the ball but I didn’t see anything.”
Harte believes Derry’s performance in losing to Galway was better than what they produced against Donegal four weeks earlier.
“I thought we did well to stay in the game. We played very good football to stay in the game. We played with a lot of energy,” he said.
“We got a lot of what we didn’t get against Donegal. A real quality performance in terms of the energy our players brought to it. It is harsh, we could have been level and suddenly we are six points down,” he added, referencing a Shane McGuigan shot parried by Galway goalkeeper Connor Gleeson at one end before Cein Darcy’s breakaway goal at the other.
