WATERFORD BOSS DEREK McGrath believes the awarding of a late free to Clare in yesterday’s hurling league final replay was ‘a mistake’ but he was keen not to heap major criticism on referee Diarmuid Kirwan.
Tony Kelly was awarded an injury-time free which he converted to tie the game before hitting the match-winning point from play for Clare.
It appeared that Waterford’s Jamie Barron had been fouled moments before the free was awarded to Kelly and the incident was a major talking point afterwards in Semple Stadium.
“I thought it was a mistake on Diarmuid’s behalf,” stated McGrath.
“But as I said previously, we make many mistakes on the line ourselves and any referee is entitled to make a mistake.
“We won’t be complaining about Diarmuid Kirwan, I thought he had a good game overall, it’s just I think he made a mistake at the end.
“We’re trying to tame Waterford people in terms of the reaction to Diarmuid (Kirwan).
“Waterford have been long enough complaining about referees and decisions, and we’re trying to create a different culture where we’re not going to blame anybody only ourselves.
“I actually thought the free was wide on top of that, but it probably wasn’t. That’s the way it goes in sport, I could give you all the cliches you want, but that’s the nature of it.”
Waterford came agonisingly close to a second successive league title before being pegged back in the finale.
“Clare came at the right time,” reckoned McGrath.
“For the majority of the game, I wouldn’t say we were in control because it was a good game, and there were elements of our play which we delighted with.
“I think we just got caught up in that last decision, and not that we lost our focus, but it probably irked us a small bit and we lost our focus on the field.
“There’s nothing you can do. I thought we played well and that our effort was totally heroic.
“It was the game that people thought it mightn’t be, a good game, and we wanted to win it so badly.”
McGrath also spoke about the decision not to thrust Pauric Mahony – who has been sidelined with a serious leg injury after their league final win in 2015 – into the action.
“It’s hard to know, and it’s probably our fault as much as anything else, not having the gumption to put him in from the start.
“We don’t know, Pauric thinks he’s ready, we perhaps think he’s ready, and maybe we need to put it on the front foot and go for it.
“He’ll play for Ballygunner against De La Salle next weekend and we’ll see how he goes. We’ll try to involve him in another couple of games after that as well.”
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