Brian Gavin: A Munster final you'd dream of refereeing

Referee John Keenan during the Munster SHC Final match between Limerick and Clare at FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

What an unbelievably good Munster final that was yesterday and what a huge honour it would have been for John Keenan to be a part of such a classic.

It was a game that had everything and he more than played his part in making it so special. I was lucky to referee four of them, never reffed a Leinster final but looking at Saturday’s game I’m not sure I missed out on much.

More of that later but this morning John will be waking up feeling pretty pleased and so he should. This was a game of huge intensity where Clare matched that manic work-rate of Limerick and John let them hurl as much as he could. Not one decision he made affected the outcome or the flow of the game, which was consistent and riveting.

I wrote recently about 90% of the hurling fraternity wanted the manliness stuff let go and John provided that to a packed Thurles. Both sets of players respected that from him, there was hardly a bad stroke in the entire game, just a couple of yellow cards that were justified.

It was exactly the type of game that John aimed for when he set out on his refereeing career and he did his job well. Conor Cleary was booked for persistent fouling and David Fitzgerald for a wild swing and neither could have any complaint. If there was one harsh call it was on Kyle Hayes for overcarrying when he was being fouled.

What John experienced on Sunday was in stark contrast to James Owens’ situation on Saturday evening in a drab Leinster final. It was dull, it was scrappy and there were plenty of frees awarded, several of them going the way of Kilkenny.

If Galway had issue with some of them, they were fortunate that Cianan Fahy was sent off for not one but two incidents that were worthy of a dismissal. He went high with the elbow on one occasion and stamped Richie Reid in another.

I feel sorry for linesman Paud O’Dwyer because he found himself in the same situation as I did with Austin Gleeson in an All-Ireland semi-final back in 2017. As a linesman, you look straight across and rarely down and he didn’t see what was done by Fahy, who has let himself down badly.

It’ll be interesting to see what action the Central Competitions Control Committee now takes. In the same play, Joe Cooney picked up a deserved yellow card for a late slap and it was ironic that the next score from Galway came from Fahy.

Jason Flynn also went high with an elbow and was fortunate not to be caught. I’ve seen some people compare it to Richie Hogan’s on Cathal Barrett in the 2019 All-Ireland final. Had it happened in the league, you can be sure he would see the line but as we have seen so often the bar is higher in the championship.

The likes of Pádraig Mannion, Adrian Mullen and Cian Kelly all rightly went into the book for yellow cards. Johnny Coen accidentally made contact with an opponent’s faceguard and James was correct not to do much more with it in what was always going to be a tough appointment to handle.

The other talking point from the game was HawkEye not being available for TJ Reid’s first-half free. It does appear the right decision was made to mark it down as a wide but it’s just as well the difference in the end was five points because the technology is supposed to be there for such occasions.

In the Joe McDonagh Cup final, it was a pity Seán Stack seemed to be sold that late free by Daniel McKernan that was scored by Conal Cunning and a point was the difference at the final the whistle. McKernan looked for it too, which was disappointing.

In Castlebar on Saturday, the Mayo penalty call was on the money as it was a footblock but Monaghan were unfortunate not to be awarded one themselves at the end when Lee Keegan infringed. If the Monaghan player went down with the ball in his possession it couldn’t but not be awarded. It was an average display by Barry Cassidy and it was a game he had to nail.

In Armagh yesterday, David Gough was consistent in his application of yellow cards and the black card for Richard Donnelly for pulling back was justified.