Feeney sorry for black card

Richie Feeney has publicly apologised to his Castlebar Mitchels’ team-mates for his early black card in Monday’s All-Ireland club final defeat.

The contrite Mayo player took to Twitter to react to his automatic substitution in the fifth minute for a bodycheck on St Vincent’s defender Kevin Bonnie.

“Let my teammate’s (sic) down big time. Nothing but regrets. Have to find a way to make up for it now. #MitchelsAbu”

It had been Feeney’s first time in Croke Park since last September’s All-Ireland final defeat to Dublin when he was surprisingly not used from the bench.

Also on Twitter yesterday, Armagh’s Ciaran McKeever hit out at the severity of the black card in Feeney’s case. Echoing the opinion of other inter-county Gaelic footballers such as Feeney’s Mayo team-mate Donal Vaughan, McKeever posted: “Was sort of warming to the black card idea... But then yesterday just made me think again ... It’s still a #bullshit rule”.