The 42

DONEGAL MANAGER Jim McGuinness said he wasn’t happy with a number of refereeing decisions as Galway edged a tense All-Ireland semi-final.

In a two-point game that was level on 10 occasions, referee Brendan Cawley’s decision to award Galway a 66th-minute free for an apparent touch on the ground by Donegal’s Ciaran Thompson was a huge call.

Donegal argued the toss at the time, Ryan McHugh in particular, but Robert Finnerty converted and Liam Silke kicked Galway’s insurance point after that.

“You guys will know that I don’t sort of make comments about referees, I try to stay away from that,” said McGuinness initially when asked about Cawley’s performance and the Thompson decision. “Everybody has got their job to do. I think there were a number (of decisions) today that we wouldn’t have been happy with. In the first minute, Ryan McHugh was breaking through, there were two men pulling at him, he blew him for over-carrying.

“I don’t really want to go there. It is what it is. We’ll have to reflect on a lot of different things over the course of the next couple of days.”

McGuinness continually circled back to Donegal’s poor scoring efficiency in the second-half when attempting to explain how they came up short of Galway.

“I suppose the summary of it will be that we converted five out of 14 (chances) in the second-half, and converted 10 from 14 in the first-half,” he said. “We ran out of steam a wee bit coming down the stretch I think. I think Galway looked a bit more battle-hardened than us, maybe that experience of a couple of years ago was beneficial to them.”

Asked if he was surprised about Donegal running out of steam, and their fitness waning, McGuinness nodded.

“We probably did (get a surprise), and we’ll have to go back and look at it, but it’s a huge day,” said the 2012 All-Ireland winning manager. “That’s what I meant earlier about Galway being there two years ago in the final. It’s a huge day and there’s a lot of emotion attached to the day, the stadium is nearly full and there’s 30,000 or 40,000 Donegal people. All of that ties into the players and they’re bringing all of that to the table.”

Galway’s fortuitous 24th-minute goal ultimately separated the teams. Paul Conroy’s point attempt dropped short and deceived goalkeeper Shaun Patton, flying to the net.

“It was obviously a huge blow,” he said. “But we ended up going in with 10 points at half-time so in terms of a psychological blow, they just kept doing what they had done the whole way through the Championship. They stayed on task, working through the processes.”

Written by Paul Keane and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.