Oisin McConville blames referee for losing control of game

Oisin McConville had no issue with Castlebar time-wasting after they took the lead, but blamed referee Eddie Kinsella for losing control towards the end of Saturday night’s AIB All-Ireland club semi-final.

An ugly fracas kicked-off along the sideline in injury-time after several Crossmaglen players were impeded from retrieving the ball after it was thrown into the Castlebar dugout.

Castlebar backroom staff and subs got involved in heated exchanges with Crossmaglen players, whose frustration spilled over.

“Slowing the game down? That’s just football, that’s just wanting to win. I wouldn’t have any qualms about that,” said the Crossmaglen joint-manager.

“It’s annoying, yeah, but the whole thing (incident) was caused by Eddie throwing the ball up in a situation where it should never have been a throw up.

“Their player dived on the ball so it should have been a free to us. It was never a throw-up. He (Kinsella) created the situation. Then he tried to sort it out but he couldn’t.

“We are certainly aware he didn’t do us any favours but we didn’t do ourselves any favours either. We should have been out of sight by half time.” Castlebar joint-manager Declan O’Reilly also downplayed the unsavoury scuffle, which marred a really fast, entertaining game.

“It (row) wasn’t anything major. It was one of those things that happens in a tight game and time was running out.”

On the ball ending up in his side’s dugout, O’Reilly said: “I don’t know how that happened, I was trying to focus on the field of play.

“I didn’t really look behind me in case I’d see something I didn’t want to.

“It probably looked a bit more than it was. It was a cracking game of football and we’re just delighted to get over the line.”