Cork boss John Cleary puzzled at late refereeing call in narrow loss to Meath

Cork manager John Cleary was 'proud' of his side despite a narrow loss to Meath in the Allianz Division 2 Football League final at Croke Park on Sunday afternoon.

The Rebels were beaten on a scoreline of 1-22 to 2-17. While silverware slipped away, promotion had already been achieved the week before, but Cork will still be frustrated by how this one panned out at GAA HQ.

They were in a good position at half-time, up two points, but they were largely second best on the resumption.

While Cleary was gracious in defeat, he was unhappy with a late decision by referee Brendan Griffin with Cork two points behind. It led to Cleary going straight for the man in the middle after the game to seek clarification.

The hooter being sounded right on the 70th minute continues to be a talking point.

I’ve said it previously that the play should play out like, you know what I mean? 

"We got a free when Maurice Shanley was tripped right at the end," he states. 

“And to me, I thought that was a 50-metre penalty, but maybe I’m wrong. That was my reading of the rules in the last play, you know, and he gave the Meath player a black card. And yet the free was there in our side of the pitch with 25 seconds left, you know, so that definitely is an advantage for the winning team.

“Like, what else would you do? Then only keep fouling, keep fouling. And that’s what’s going on. If you’re a point up with 40 seconds left, you’re going to keep fouling, fouling, because to me, after we got the free, it should have been brought up 50 metres, why it wasn’t, I don’t know.” 

Cleary was happy with the application of his players despite the defeat with promotion achieved and that was the main aim at the start of the campaign.

“We fought back very valiantly in the end,” he said.

Meath got on top around the middle and just managed to stay in front. We went toe-to-toe with them.

“We had chances in the first half, two goal chances that we didn’t take. We fought valiantly to the end, and look, we were sizing up for a two-pointer there to equalise or maybe get one point.

DISAPPOINTED

“I’m disappointed but incredibly proud of the lads, and again, they fought to the end, left it all out there and throughout the whole league. And we just ultimately fell short in the end to a very good Meath team.” 

One problem area that did contribute to Cork’s narrow loss was kick-outs and the Rebel boss did agree that it was an area where they could have done better.

“We’ll just have to go back to the drawing board now, we have done a lot of work on kick-outs,” the Castlehaven clubman says.

“In fairness to Meath, they did push up very well. They had big men around the middle and, you know, they dominated there. So look, it’s something that we’ll just have to go back to the drawing board on and improve now for the championship.

“It’s over now. And we just got to, you know, concentrate on the championship.” 

The performance of Steven Sherlock was once again head and shoulders above the rest. The St Finbarr’s star kicked 0-9 (1 2pt, 0-1 f). Cleary namechecked him after the game.

Cork though, normally good for the orange flags, only got one compared to four for Meath.

“Steven is a very good kicker, of course we would be trying to get him on the end of moves. And, in fairness to the other lads, that’s what they try to do, make space for him.

“And that’s what they were doing today. And, you know, for the most of it, he had his shooting boots on. He was excellent, you know, got some fantastic scores.

“Fair play to Meath, they really clamped down on our two-point efforts. They were aware of that."