Derry accept ruling as minor final appeal fails

DERRY County Board will take no further action following the rejection of their appeal against the result of the Ulster Minor Football final.

The provincial council’s Competitions Control Committee, meeting on Tuesday night, ruled that it could not deal with the appeal and accordingly adopted the referee’s report.

The appeal was based on the awarding of a point to Tyrone which television pictures subsequently showed was wide. Tyrone won the game and the margin of victory was a single point.

It means that Derry now play Cork in the All-Ireland quarter-final, which is ironic because of the fact the county was involved in a controversy with the Cork County Board seven years ago, when the teams met in a semi-final game.

It saw current senior hurler Kieran “Hero” Murphy (the nominated captain of the team, but left out for Sunday’s game against Waterford) escape dismissal after a second yellow card because of an error by the ref.

Derry campaigned in vain to get Cork to agree to a refixture. Subsequently, Cork went on to win the All-Ireland final, captained by James Masters.

Derry PRO Gerry Donnelly said that the board would not be making any statement on the outcome of their appeal. “That is the end of the matter as far as we are concerned,’’ he said. “There will be no follow-up.’’