Good to see penalty guidelines enforced

The Clare sideline were extremely agitated an annoyed by some of James McGrath’s first-half decisions at Semple Stadium yesterday.

In the 19th minute, McGrath blew Donal Tuohy for charging. A correct decision but then in the 38th minute Bill Cooper did the same to Brendan Bugler and Cork were handed the free.

That was inconsistent but it doesn’t take away from the trend that when teams are giving away more frees than their opponents, they are usually fouling more.

It was good to see the new guideline for the penalty operated in Thurles yesterday, just as it was encouraging to see how well Colm Lyons did in Wexford the night previous.

He had a fantastic game, from the first yellow card he showed to Ciarán Kenny, right through to the pick-up he called against Podge Doran.

In the 55th minute, he correctly gave Wexford a free when Dotsy O’Callaghan fouled Matthew O’Hanlon when many might have thought the free was going to go Dublin’s way.

Turning to the football, and Mickey Harte’s main issue with yesterday’s game in Ulster was the amount of — or lack of, to be precise — stoppage time in the second half.

He has a solid argument. Going back over the second half, there were four occasions where Eddie Kinsella signalled for time to be stopped for injuries. Bear in mind, referees can only halt their watch for exceptional injuries.

All the stoppages came because of Monaghan injuries: Dick Clerkin (twice, one for 68 seconds and the other for 58 seconds), Dessie Mone (60 seconds) and Drew Wylie (30 seconds).

That amounted to three minutes and 36 seconds. Rounding that up to the nearest minute, four minutes of added time should have been given. Yet Kinsella only provided two minutes and, as it turned out, another 20 seconds.

It was a real stop-start game in Clones, with a lot of time especially in the second half taken up by goalkeepers coming up to kick frees. Both Niall Morgan and Rory Beggan were taking almost a minute each time.

There were also a number of substitutes but the rules at present don’t allow for time to be added on for such circumstances.

Monaghan were blown up for time-wasting in the 65th minute and Kinsella threw up the ball.

On the subject of black cards, Darren McCurry was incorrectly shown one in the 59th minute when he accidentally elbowed, not handtripped.

Dessie Mone’s foul in the 62nd minute looked deliberate and cynical but he then only received a yellow card as punishment.

Darren Hughes’s black card came by way of a foul on Sean Cavanagh but what exactly happened in that tussle?

It’s not clearer after watching it several times. Was it a fall, a push, a dive or a pull? It just shows how difficult it is to adjudicate on this rule.

In the 70th minute, Mone should have been awarded a free just before Tyrone were awarded one to equalise, which Morgan put wide.

Two minutes into injury-time, Cavanagh should have been shown black rather than yellow for a bad tackle.