Antrim’s rage at validity of Royals’ Ring win

CONTROVERSY reigned at Croke Park where Meath staged a late rally to claim a maiden Christy Ring Cup title though queries about the scoreline emerged with suggestions it was actually a draw.

Substitute Seán Quigley’s 1-1 at the death for Meath officially won the game for the Royal County. Their reward is a place in next year’s MacCarthy Cup as a member of the Leinster Championship’s qualifier group next term.

However, it remains to be seen if the result stands as all members of the written press, as well as senior members of the Antrim management and backroom team, had the game finishing as a 1-20 to 2-17 draw. An issue arose in the 63rd minute when scoreboard operators failed to properly update the score after Niall McKenna pointed for Antrim to move them into a 1-20 to 1-15 lead.

‘I kept saying to Frankie Quinn (Antrim official), “there’s a score missing”, it needs to be sorted out,’ said Antrim manager Dominic McKinley afterwards. ‘This competition is as important as an All-Ireland final, it is an All-Ireland final and for that there to happen, people need to take a long hard look at themselves.

‘I know the scoreboard was wrong all day, back and forward on different occasions. It shouldn’t happen at headquarters.’

The official GAA response was that the match referee, John O’Brien, was happy with his scoreline of 2-18 to 1-20.

Meath manager Martin Ennis said he was unaware of any issues and celebrated a famous win for his county. They certainly deserve high praise as they trailed 1-10 to 0-7 at half-time having conceded 1-4 without reply at one stage, the goal a 15th minute Conor Johnston effort.

But 1-1 from Meath fullforward Neil Heffernan early in the second-half turned the game on its head and left just four points in it.