Kerry captain Brosnan laments inconsistency in refereeing decisions

AMANDA Brosnan captained Kerry for the second time on Saturday, and was happy that her side remains unbeaten in the league. She made no bones about the side’s ambition though, and was a bit disappointed not to come away with full points. Similar to Kerry manager Donal O’Doherty, she was also dismayed with some of the refereeing on the day.

“Look we came to win. We put in a great performance. I think everyone on the pitch including the subs put in 100% and I think that we won 90% of the battles out there today. We had a massive first half and then they got a sucker punch goal just on the half time whistle so that was like a six point turnaround because we had a goal disallowed. We think that some of the ref’s decisions were a little unfair towards us but look we have to move on, you can’t dwell on those things. The thing is, in ladies football the inconsistency is across the board. You have to go up and ask the ref before the throw in what’s his rules for tackling.

“If someone is coming towards you there’s obviously going to be contact, some refs don’t allow contact so how are you going to tackle the ball, how are you going to stop the ball, you’re not going to let them go through.

“That has to be looked at from the top. But look, we aren’t going to blame the ref, we were well on top, we were in control the whole game and then in injury time they went up a point but we had the character to come back”.

Kerry had to stage a fight back to secure a draw in the previous round against Clare, and Brosnan felt that the character shown by the young side was sure to stand to them going forward.

“Today’s game and last weeks game will bring us on. They were tough games and the fightback that we showed in the last five minutes of both games will stand to us.

“We knew going into the game that Sarah and Louise would be big losses – they are the girls that will get you four or five points in a game. But in fairness Erica [McGlynn] and Hannah O’Donoghue, with that last point to equalise , I mean she is only in her first year in college. She’s only 18 or 19 years old and is going to be a great player. We have great strength in depth and when all the girls are back and we are in the thick of things in June and July it’s going to be very hard to pick a team.”