Jim Gavin: High card count ‘reactionary’

Jim Gavin described the eight cards shown to Dublin players – one red, five yellow and two black – as "reactionary", hinting that the Kerry footballers influenced referee Eddie Kinsella.

The Dublin manager also accused Kerry corner-back Fionn Fitzgerald of hitting the deck quite quickly following Michael Fitzsimons’ frontal charge. Kinsella dismissed Fitzsimons on a straight red card. Philly McMahon and Denis Bastick were ordered off on black card offences.

“Obviously we’ll need to look at the decisions again. They seem to me to be a bit reactionary,” said Gavin. “A lot of the opposing players seemed to put him [Kinsella] under pressure. Maybe the wrong call was made, we’ll need to review the tape, and for the sending off, the player (Fitzgerald) seemed to go down quite quickly so again we’ll have to have a look at that.

“We did seem to come off worse in a lot of the decisions. You saw the reaction of our travelling support. That spoke volumes.”

Are Dublin perhaps discriminated against by officials?

“That is something we can’t control. All I expect from my players is that if hard challenges go in that they get up and play the game, that they don’t get involved with an official which they didn’t, that they don’t try and influence anybody except their own game and I would be very proud of them in that respect. From my perspective, I am happy with how my Dublin players conducted themselves today.”

On their performance as a whole, he added: “We played well in the first two quarters. We lost a bit of momentum in the third quarter. Kerry put scores on the board and looked very clinical for that part. We rallied very hard, there was only two points in it with 10 to go.

“Overall we are very pleased the way the players conducted themselves.”

Named at centre-back, John Small was a late withdrawal. The Ballymun Kickhams footballer suffered a soft tissue injury when lining out for St Pats in last week’s Trench Cup semi-final and final.

“The way the third-level competition is designed, despite the advice given by Dr Pat O’Neill and his committee, that playing games back-to-back inside 24-hours isn’t in the best interest of a player’s welfare. And he succumbed to a soft tissue injury that he picked up from playing two games inside 24 hours.”

On the potential return of Alan Brogan, he concluded: “Alan’s wife is expecting their second child any day now, so that’s where his focus needs to be, with his family.”