There wasn’t much left in Stephen Rochford’s voice after full time on Saturday afternoon, when he spoke following Mayo’s win over Fermanagh in MacHale Park on the back of a controversial penalty. Asked whether he thought it might come back to cost Mayo later on down the track if they don’t get a big decision, Rochford said he felt it was along time coming that Aidan O’Shea got some luck to go his way when it came to the action on the field. “I would have hoped that after seeing the attention he got in the league, he got a break, he got a black card in Monaghan for a tackle that was just an arm out in the first three minutes, he got fellas you know jumping on his back here against Dublin, if he got a break it’s not before time.”
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Fermanagh manager Pete McGrath had an all together different view on the incident saying afterwards that “I would have to say seeing the penalty now, that was not a penalty. And I think people are already ridiculing the referee on social media. Aidan O’Shea is a marvellous footballer, I’m not saying others wouldn’t have done what Aidan did, but he dived, big time, no doubt about it. The referee bought it hook line and sinker. That penalty was the defining moment in the game, it was the moment in the game that quite possibly, 95 per cent put that game out of our reach. We were leading with six or seven minutes to go and for a penalty to be awarded as easily as that is highly disappointing.”
