THE FERMANAGH MANAGER, Pete McGrath, accused Donegal of ‘gamesmanship’ during yesterday’s Ulster SFC quarter-final in Ballybofey.
Donegal defeated the Ernemen 2-12 to 0-11 at Sean MacCumhaill Park, but McGrath, as he stood surrounded by a posse of reporters afterwards, delivered what was a damning verdict on Donegal.
“Donegal had a lot of gamesmanship out there today whether you like it or not,” McGrath said.
“Let’s call a spade a spade. I mean, the number of times Donegal players went down, in some instances feigning injury, just to stop the clock, to break the play up… And the referee fell for it, he fell for it.”
Neil McGee, the Donegal full-back, was sent off late in the first half for an apparent strike on Ruairí Corrigan.
Referee Maurice Deegan flashed red at McGee and awarded Fermanagh a penalty, but Sean Quigley’s tame effort was saved by Mark Anthony McGinley.
McGrath was angered by the delay in the time – almost three minutes – between the incident between McGee and Corrigan and Quigley being allowed take the kick.
[adrotate group=”53″]McGrath said: “For him (Deegan) to allow that amount of time to elapse and the penalty being taken, I mean that’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable.
“Let’s see what the authorities do about it. I mean, they will do nothing of course, because it’s Fermanagh. If it was Dublin on the receiving end of it they might do something about it, but because it’s Fermanagh…”
Rory Gallagher, the Donegal manager, was unhappy that Fermanagh midfielder Eoin Donnelly wasn’t punished for a challenge on Martin McElhinney, while the Donegal corner were adamant that Deegan had blown for a free out in the seconds leading into the incident that led to Fermanagh’s penalty.
[adrotate group=”70″]The Donegal manager said: “All I will say is that there was a decision near our sideline where there was an elbow to the head of one of our players which the referee gave a free for. Why give a free and not act on it?”
Fermanagh had a chance to lead at half-time with the penalty, but Quigley’s miss meant that Donegal had a 1-6 to 0-7 advantage.
McGrath said: “Everyone has their own, how they take a penalty and how they take it, it’s up to the man to take it. And Sean has a very good record at taking penalties. He is only human like the rest of us.
“The penalty was missed. If it had come at the last minute of the game, and you were two points behind then yes, we would have had time to get over that and we did get over that.
[adrotate group=”68″]“We played very well the last fifteen minutes of the first half, we had momentum, got the first score of the second half, went toe to toe and then the second Donegal goal punched a lot of the life out of us.
“We kept coming, but we had too many pussy-footed shots at goals, and lost the ball in the tackle as well. But that’s Donegal, I mean they can defend in numbers and that’s why they are hard to play against.”
Last year, Fermanagh reached an All-Ireland quarter-final, where they lost to Dublin and McGrath believes his men can reach Croke Park again. On Saturday-week they head for Wexford for an All-Ireland qualifier.
[adrotate group=”74″]McGrath said: “The way we played there for quite extended patches of that game, I think shows me that we can match a lot of teams in the country. Seriously, we can.
“We just have to take a step back, sort a few things out that happened today and a few things that didn’t happen today. If we can do that, I would be utterly confident we would go to Wexford to win that game.
“And let’s see then what happens after that.”
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