IRELAND MANAGER JOE Kernan indicated his disappointment at the refereeing performances in the wake of Australia’s second test victory in Perth this morning.
Ireland went down 53-50 to the Aussies and Kernan criticised Laois native Maurice Deegan and Australian Matt Stevic after the game.
“I’ll have to look at a lot of the refereeing decisions,” he told RTÉ Sport.
“Michael Murphy took awful abuse all day, a few decisions against us were costly. Aidan O’Shea got a forearm smash here in front of the dugout which nothing happened after.
“I think we need to look at the rules to see is it the right rules we are playing by or have things changed since we got the book a couple of weeks ago.”
Kernan was particularly irked by the treatment Murphy received by the opposition.
“Last week in the first game there were three frees given in our full-back line for off the ball pulling,” Kernan said.
“Michael Murphy was hit by everything bar the chairs in the stand today and I don’t think he got a free inside 21 yards.
“There’s something wrong here somewhere but until we look at the video and go through the whole thing which we will.
“We will send a copy to the AFL and the referees and to our own Maurice Deegan and I’ll sit down with any of them and if we are wrong we will say we are wrong, what happened to Michael Murphy out there today wasn’t right at all.”
Overall Kernan was pleased with the Irish display and remains optimistic about the future of the series.
“Everybody here enjoyed the game, they were kept on the edge of their seats until the and end we were in with a chance of turning over the ten points.
“Fair play to Australia, they only had four men on the bench today, they lost a man and they kept coming and coming and that shows the character and professionalism they have and the fitness levels they have, they were composed when we weren’t.”
“The (Irish) boys put in a fantastic effort and I thought we deserved to win it.
“They didn’t do it in the end which is disappointing, the boys played some lovely football but we made a lot of mistakes in the last quarter, which we are badly punished for so it was disappointing.”
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Have to say the Australian ref was very biased in his decisions and Deegan should not have allowed himself to be over-ruled either!
@raymond flynn: Did you sing “The fields of Anfield Road” when you were watching it?
Massive deflection from Joe there. The Irish lads kept playing the game like Gaelic football, bringing it into contact and not disposing it quickly enough. Not to mention the atrocious kick passing by our lads. Joe talking about rules….Irish commentators thinking it’s within the afl rules to put hands on the back when the ball is within 5 metres thus giving away frees in the compromise rules. Pretty clear the Irish across the board don’t know the rules. Referees were spot on all round and deegan was rightly over ruled. In fact he corrected himself almost immediately. I thought Ganey played well. McManus was class when he got the ball and our fielding from kick outs were excellent. Plenty of positives.
@Darren Sheils: tell me one good thing Geaney did in the two games,to warrant that statement,he was expected to be a star man for us and he failed to perform in the series!!it can happen to anyone he’s still an exceptional footballer.
Better team won.