Finn laments poor refereeing

Shamrock Rovers midfielder Ronan Finn was not happy with the performance of referee Anthony Buttimer during last night's Airtricity League game between Rovers and Saint Patrick's Athletic.


Finn believes that his side should have had  a freekick before the first Pats goal. “It was quite a fair game up until the first goal.  For the first goal Gary McCabe got pushed over and it should have been a freekick.  They have broke from that. One pass and Conan Byrne is in and finishes it well. Everybody in the ground thought it was a freekick. I thought it was a freekick and I am standing 30 yards away.”

Both Derek Foran and Sean O'Connor were sent off by Buttimer either side of half time. Finn gave his view on both decisions to extratime.ie


“For the second goal Anthony Flood got his shot away, Brush saved it and Derek Foran collided with him after the incident and was sent off. For the third one Sean's (O Connor) got in front of him (Chris Forrester) and clearly won the ball. Sean got his body in front. It's just a shoulder connection. No sending off. It was then 11 against 9 and the game suddenly becomes about the refeee.”

Saint Pats won the game 4-0. The Shamrock Rovers midfielder believes that there was no way back for his side once they went down to nine men “All of a sudden the game's over. It's 2-0 and there is 11 men against 9. Pats are top of the league and they are a good side. They keep the ball and realistically you are never going to win the game from that point of view.”

Rovers were without the suspended Jason McGuinness and Stephen Rice. However Finn believes that his side had a good enough team out to comete with the league leaders and that his side's defeat was mainly down to bad referring decisions on the night  “I think we had a good enough team out tonight. You can't legislate for some of the decisions. He just made bad decisions. The ref  had a bad game. If you analyze the game and watch it back you will see that the ref has made bad decisions.”