Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
KERNAN FURY AT OFFICIALS DOWN UNDER
A FURIOUS Joe Kernan has branded the umpiring by Australia’s Matt Stevic and Ireland’s Maurice Deegan in Saturday’s second IRS Test as “diabolical” and accused the Australians of “torturing” Donegal captain Michael Murphy.
Kernan (below) is also adamant that Australia’s player of the series, Nat Fyfe, should have been sent off for a dangerous forearm to the chest and neck of Ireland and Mayo captain Aidan O’shea in the 53-50 defeat to Australia which completed a two Test clean sweep by the home side and the regaining of the Cormac Mcanallen trophy.
“It was a dangerous tackle — a forearm charge,” an angry Kernan said.
“I don’t know what the ruling for it is, but in our country it’s a sending off.
“If someone charges and hits you under your chin with a forearm, that’s a dangerous tackle — that’s a sending off. A black card.
“If something is a foul, it’s a foul. And it’s up to the officials to deal with it.
“Murphy was being dragged all through and never got a free.
“I question some of their decisions.”
Geelong skipper Joel Selwood breathed a huge sigh of relief following the Test when he was informed that his black card for a high and late tackle bump on Mayo’s Chris Bartrett would not result in a one-match ban for the 2018 AFL series. Match officials reviewed the footage of the incident together with footage of the ugly halftime melee between both teams but decided against taking action.
Despite Kernan’s anger at the umpiring, he lauded both sides for their spirit and conceded that Australia was the better side over both Test matches.
“The losing of the game was ourselves,” Kernan explained.
“In fairness to the Australians, they played very well. Everything we planned to do came up early on.
“We got two early goals and put them on the backfoot. Even in the third quarter when we didn’t play all that well we hung on in there.
“The game was there for the taking when we were 16 points up. We were being caught on the ball. We should have been moving it. Australia punished us big time.”