Losing Shane is just scandalous

IT IS nothing short of a scandal that Shane McGuigan will miss what is arguably the defining game of Derry’s season today.

If they beat Galway, they will be assured of back-to-back promotions, but that suddenly looks like a very formidable task in the absence of their chief scorer, who will miss today’s game as a result of a suspension which he failed to overturn during the week.

I have always taken the position that if you do the crime, you do the time. I will make an exception on McGuigan’s behalf because he was wronged on the double last weekend against Roscommon.

We all saw how he was pulled to the ground by Roscommon’s Brian Stack as he sought to support the attack, a foul initiated by Stack to stop Derry’s most dangerous player, one which he was happy to take a black card for.

But McGuigan, already shown a harsh yellow card, received a second one for being fouled and is subsequently not on the field to kick the free that would almost certainly have won the game and all but secured Derry’s promotion. What RTÉ failed to show last Sunday night was that just a minute earlier, another McGuigan support run was brought to a halt when Stack pulled him around the neck and brought him to ground in the most nakedly cynical act everyone could see. Everyone, except the match officials, that is.

Instead, not only does he get sent off, which would have incurred no ban because it was a double yellow card offence, but he gets suspended because he vents his justified frustration at a linesman who got it wrong.

This week, the GAA and that match official should have seen sense to ensure that some form of delayed justice would have been delivered but instead they stood by a decision that was utterly flawed.

In the process it did little for a campaign, one which I wholeheartedly support, of showing match officials respect.

But respect and fairness is a two-way street and the luckless Shane McGuigan was shown very little of either this week.