You are the ref - John Bannon

No blood, no replacement

Yesterday we saw the unusual situation of Mayo using eight substitutes — five of them straight-forward ones and the other three blood replacements.

On paper, there’s nothing wrong there. You can make as many blood substitutions as you want providing your players are bleeding.

Looking at the television coverage, I’d have no issue with the veracity of Enda Varley or Kevin McLoughlin being replaced temporarily on those grounds.

Both were visibly bleeding and came off at different stages of the second-half, with Alan Freeman and Colm Boyle taking their places.

However, it was hard to see exactly how Lee Keegan was taken off as a blood substitute when he had clearly dislocated or broken his finger.

The TV images showed a clear picture of Keegan’s injured finger and there didn’t appear to be any blood.

As the rule states, there must be blood if a player is to be replaced temporarily and it’s something that will need clarifying.

Aside from a few incidents, Joe McQuillan had a decent game in what was a real high-tempo affair.

In the 11th minute, he should have booked Bryan Cullen for a trip on Alan Dillon while in the 30th minute Jason Doherty hopped the ball twice yet it went undetected and Varley got a point. In the 44th minute, McQuillan correctly blew Kevin Nolan up for charging. However, Stephen Cluxton was able to kick over a 45 in the 64th minute when the ball had last hit off a Dublin forward before it passed the end-line.

The second-half was a stop-start affair with a number of minor incidents between opposing players. Philly McMahon should have been booked following an incident with Varley.

That sparked a few rough exchanges between the players with McQuillan, after consulting with his umpires and then linesmen for a long period of time, booking Dillon, James McCarthy and Rory O’Carroll. The duration of the incident stopped the momentum of the game.

Mayo did commit a number of cynical fouls towards the end as all winning teams do in such circumstances.

It’s far too easy for them to pick up yellow cards knowing it will have no effect on them in the All-Ireland final.

As for the five minutes of injury-time, McQuillan could have allowed so much more such were the amount of stoppages.

In the minor game, my fellow county man Fergal Kelly performed well and showed that you can call frees in a game when not all of them are yellow or red card offences.

Unlike the previous weekend, it wasn’t a controversial game by any means.