Leitrim manager Karl Foley unhappy with referee's decisions in Sligo loss

To say Karl Foley was irate after last Friday’s Electric Ireland Connacht MFC loss to Sligo is maybe understating it but the Leitrim manager was also immensely proud of his team’s display in Markievicz Park.

Sligo hit an injury time winner to take the contest 0-9 to 0-8 with Foley questioning a lot of the decisions of referee Garryowen McMahon after the game: “The first thing is the lads are going to be hurting, we’re all hurting here. That was one hell of a performance, in my view they were by far the better team.

“But I question a couple of the referee’s decisions to be honest with you. I question a couple of the scores they got, I question why we didn’t get two marks in the first half. In such a tight game with such small margins, we should have got that. We didn’t get the rub of the green with the referee and I would be very critical of a few of his decisions he made. I thought we played a good game - take those decisions out of it and we should have been comfortable winners.”

Foley also felt Leitrim should have had a penalty: “I would be very critical of the referee and I wouldn’t normally but I just thought we got nothing out of it in my view. I would also question the penalty decision he didn’t give us, I’ll have to look back on it - to me, he looked to be well inside when that foul was committed.

 “Small margins in games like that - our lads are going to be hurting but I will say the progress that we have made this year has been enormous.”

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The Leitrim manager was immensely proud of his team despite some self-inflicted errors: “We carried the ball into contact at the end which is something we have worked on so hard all year and got turned over and that ultimately was the one thing that finished the game for us.

“This group has shown enormous progress over the last six, seven months since we came back training - they are a different team to what we had last year, there is a different mentality, a different system, a different style, there is more belief in them. I couldn’t ask any more of them, I thought they were brilliant. 

“They were really so good, my hats off to them, I am so proud that they battled the way they did, to show the maturity they did in a tough championship game in Sligo’s backyard. Had we taken a few more scores that fell short, we were probably three, four points the better team and anyone who was here and who was watching the game will see and know that.

“Maybe at times, we could have taken the ball a bit more and gone for scores but we’ve taught this group to be a little bit more controlled on the ball and not to give cheap turnovers. That is the one big thing we particularly want to take from that, to cut out the turnovers, try to do the right thing with the ball, obviously create chances.”

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Foley was pleased with how his team performed on their first outing: “Roscommon next, we’ve just got to pick ourselves up. We’re fit, we’re strong, we’ve a good group of lads - we had most of the possession for parts of this game. The boys are still learning this system, this is all new to these lads and they’ve taken so much on board and credit to them. 

“We’ve lost today but in the larger scale of things, these lads will learn an awful lot from this evening to take into the rest of the championship. There is an awful lot more in this group and more to come from them, I can assure you of that.”