Brian Gavin: Joe McQuillan kept mistakes to a minimum - he did his family and county proud
The All-Ireland final officials and umpires, with referee Joe McQuillan taking charge of the game. Picture: James Crombie/Inpho
Going into Saturday, all the talk about Joe McQuillan was how difficult he was going to have it. Mayo and Tyrone were not going to hold back from one another and Joe would be under pressure to keep up with the physical stuff.
From the word go, it was clear that Joe was going to be up to the task and had his house in order. His body language suggested he was in for a tough battle and set out his stall when he showed Brian Kennedy a yellow card in the third minute. Joe did well to identify that Kennedy used a closed fist when fouling among a group of four or five players.
Pádraig O’Hora was at the start and end of two cynical foul incidents towards the end the first half. His foul on Darren McCurry wasn’t a black card offence — he held onto him and Sludden was going to ground himself and Joe simply noted him and I could see why he did that. Minutes later, Joe took his time before adjudging O’Hora wasn’t fouled by Kieran McGeary inside the small parallelogram close to half-time. He spoke with his umpires and might also have listened to what his linesmen said about where it took place and it was a good consultation because it was the right decision to give a 20-metre free and McGeary a yellow card.
Early in the second half, Frank Burns got a yellow card for a high tackle, which was also correct, and from the free kick that Ryan O’Donoghue dropped short a penalty was awarded to Mayo for Burns handling the ball on the ground.
I’ve seen people suggest the penalty should have been retaken because Niall Morgan moved off the line but it would have been a harsh call given the kick had hit the post. What I haven’t heard mention is there should have been no penalty because Diarmuid O’Connor looked to be in the square before the ball entered and it was a set-piece.
Lee Keegan was given a yellow card for a cynical foul and it was technically right and Matthew Ruane can have no complaints about his sending off when he appeared to strike Conn Kilpatrick three times. That being said, Kilpatrick was fortunate to get off with a yellow for his involvement.
There had been a couple of rumblings about Joe being from the same province as Tyrone benefitting the Ulster champions but there was no indication of any bias in his performance. Often, teams do prefer to have the referee from the same province — it happened a lot in Munster hurling where they liked officials from the locality — but Joe went out to referee to the best of his ability, to keep his mistakes to a minimum and do his family, friends, club and county proud. In his fourth All-Ireland final, he achieved that.
Overall, football refereeing at national level is strong and there are six or seven lads capable of refereeing an All-Ireland final. Joe and Maurice Deegan are in the higher age bracket and the likes of Brendan Cawley, who did well this year, might come more into the reckoning but there were a lot of positives across the board.
In the All-Ireland senior camogie final, Liz Dempsey had a fine game and coped impressively with the lightning pace.
Awarding Orla Cronin a free in when she had caught the ball a third time seemed the only big mistake. Not that it mattered as Galway won and Dempsey showed she was the right woman to be given the role.
