Wexford manager John Hegarty describe Leitrim penalty decision as "very hard to take"

Wexford manager John Hegarty has described the decision to award Letirim a match winning penalty in Sunday’s Allianz NFL Division 4 clash in Avant Money Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada as “very hard to take” as footage of the controversial decision has emerged on X, formerly Twitter.

Speaking to the Wexford People after their 3-7 to 2-9 loss, Hegarty said “I’ve never gone into giving out about referees, and I won’t now either, but it is difficult to take. I didn’t meet anyone, either Leitrim or Wexford, who felt it was a penalty and when you look back at the video of it, it wasn’t.

“Ultimately that decides the game and perhaps decides your league campaign for the year. We didn’t do everything right but ultimately when you’re leading two minutes into injury time and looking comfortable, for a decision like that to decide the game it’s very hard to take,” Hegarty said.

Former Wexford footballer Adrian Flynn shared footage of the incident on X, commenting “Absolutely shocking decision that cost Wexford today and potentially a shot at promotion” before adding in response to another post “You need to be 100% certain of a decision like that and the fact it was no foul, I don’t know how the ref came to that conclusion.”

Absolutely shocking decision that cost Wexford today and potentially a shot at promotion. pic.twitter.com/IjkocI6c2y

— Adrian Flynn (@Panthero84) February 18, 2024

Hegarty also highlighted the lack of appeals from Leitrim players and supporters and revealed that Donegal referee Mark Dorrian told him after the game that “he thought he saw a pull” which led to his decision to award a penalty.

“There certainly wouldn’t have been any complaints (from Leitrim). Some of the Leitrim supporters and officials were almost half apologising, while delighted with it. It’s hard to understand what he saw. He said afterwards he thought he saw a pull. I didn’t think there was anything in it. Look, he makes the call, that’s it.”

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A second loss in the campaign leaves Wexford with a mountain to climb in terms of promotion which the Wexford manager acknowledged: “That’s the real killer about today, it takes it out of our own hands and now all we can do is accumulate the points we can accumulate and see what happens elsewhere. 

“You never know how results are going to go in this division. After the Laois game we held our hands up and said we didn’t deserve anything because we were way below par. That wasn’t the case today. There are some days that you do feel you deserve something, and you just don’t get it,” he said.

READ WEXFORD MANAGER JOHN HEGARTY'S FULL INTERVIEW WITH THE WEXFORD PEOPLE