Shane McGuigan lost the head and when you see what he was sent off for, it’s very easy to see why.
Brian Stack hood-winked the officials, who should have known better, and McGuigan and Derry paid the price for it.
It was a heavy price and it was fairly sickening to watch because, just seconds after the McGuigan was given his marching orders, Derry had a free to win the game. McGuigan is their free-taker, he’s one of the best free-takers around but he never got the chance to take this one on.
He had kicked five of them up to that, from all sorts of angles in Hyde Park but because of two ridiculous yellow cards, he was looking on from the line.
Emmett Bradley missed the free, Roscommon dodged a bullet and Sean Longergan and his team of officials have a lot to answer for.
If McGuigan thought his first yellow card was bad, when he was harshly punished for a run-of-the-mill foul on a Roscommon player, then he’ll have thought that his second was ridiculous altogether.
Then again, with 18 cards doled out on the day, it was one of those days in Hyde Park. For the second yellow, it was a classic case of punishing both players even though only one of them weas in the wrong. As Colm O’Rourke said on The Sunday Game, there’s absolutely no reason why Shane McGuigan, running up the field in pursuit of a winning score, would have gotten involved with Brian Stack and the footage backed that up.
Stack dragged him down and the Slaughtneil man showed great patience and discipline not to react. He seemed to purposely keep his hands down by his side but that wasn’t enough and he was given the road.
“Well a referee with a bit of cop-on will know that a forward running towards the goal isn’t going to foul the back coming behind him. Like Shane McGuigan shouldn’t have got either card and he should have been there to kick that free at the end,” said O’Rourke on The Sunday Game.
Colm Cooper was of the same opinion.
“I think Shane McGuigan can definitely feel hard-done by. The first tackle was not a yellow and the second time, he was just held by Brian Stack. You can see his frustration because he was kicking these for fun throughout the match,” said the Kerry man.
There was 18 cards shown at yesterday's game between Roscommon and Derry, including two blacks and two reds 🟥
No prizes for guessing what Shane McGuigan said after receiving his marching orders🤬 pic.twitter.com/MwTURdTN5w
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) March 14, 2022
As is almost everyone in the country.
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