Easy for Down after Keenan’s early bath

The outcome of a poor game was effectively decided in the ninth minute when Daryl Keenan was given a straight red card, which ended Fermanagh’s hopes of pulling off an Ulster championship shock yesterday.

Down were workmanlike, but not brilliant. Nevertheless, it was still too good for 14-man Fermanagh who started without their enigmatic top scorer Seamus Quigley.

We will never know how this game would have panned out if it had stayed 15 versus 15, but the early red for Keenan, for an apparent punch on Down’s Conor Laverty, was the key moment. Referee Syl Doyle consulted with an umpire before flashing the red to the Tempo man, a decision which cost the Erne men any chance of victory.