'Officiating very poor' says Ferbane's Fox after losing second final in row

FOR all the talk of Tullamore winning two in a row it shouldn't be forgotten that Ferbane have to bear the bitter flipside of that – back to back county final defeats.

That's why it was so interesting to see Leon Fox weave his way through the celebrating blue-clad crowd on the O'Connor Park pitch, quietly having a word one by one with players who pipped his side by a solitary point.

Gracious Fox certainly was. But he was clearly hurting too. “I know straight after a game, probably my feelings are hard,” he said, as he launched a broadside against the match officials.

“I thought the game was ruined by officiating,” he remarked, clarifying that the comment must not be interpreted as Ferbane making excuses for losing.

“We'll never blame officials because we lost. Look, we didn't score enough in the first half, we lost the battle and breaks in the second half but I just think overall the officiating was very poor for a county final,” he said.

“I just think it's not fair on both teams. Credit to Tullamore, they were the better team on the day, they won the second half fair and square, the breaking ball, the kick-outs, I thought that turned the game for them.

“Breaking balls win games, that's the long and short of it, Tullamore dominated the breaking ball in the second half.”

Asked to explain how Tullamore could turn a five-point deficit around to go two in front before edging it by that single point he said: “Niall [Stack] and James [Buckley] are very experienced on the sideline and Colm Quinn and Cathal Daly are very experienced and they changed it to have five around the middle and cleaned the breaks and fair play to them.”