Thats a great post, nail on head.
It wasn’t a marginal free. If you pull a player’s arm it’s a free all ends up.
I’m sorry I don’t buy that at all and the way this conversation is going is frankly bizarre. The rules are the rules and at that time of the match it is even more important that they are followed. It was a free on Spillane in my view (marginal granted but still a free) and the kick was no gimme for Clifford (whether it was or not is beside the point). The kick out incident - again it was an infringement and had to be called as such. This notion of having sympathy - bullshit. That was terrible play from a terrible keeper.
I didn’t say sympathy, I said discretion. Galway didn’t derive any benefit from that kickout infringement so penalising them seems pedantic and unfair.
And if they went up the field and scored a point or a goal what would you have said?
Lads here saying ‘the rules are the rules’ and they’re the first ones to give out about a whistle happy referee. You couldn’t make it up.
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I think that’s a nonsense contention. Do you think if they scored it would have been because a Galway defender at the other side of the play was just inside the 21? Are you for real? It was merely a technical infringement and there was no benefit to it.
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He’d be mad to
But you could be sure that there would be people correctly saying that the kick out should have been a thrown ball. ‘But it was an accident’ 
It’s not the ref’s fault that Galway have a woefully poor keeper.
Those people would be idiots.
Clifford didn’t take his free from the exact position that the alleged foul occurred - if Hurson had decided to throw the ball up for that it would have been equally as ridiculous as throwing it up for the kickout infringement. It was probably the easiest football final to referee in decades, I’m not sure why he decided he should play a bigger part in it for the last 10 minutes.
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He told Clifford to get into the correct position which is the normal practice, which he did.
Do you think Clifford stole a yard even by kicking it from his hands? That’s an infringement but you think that’s ok?
Called it 
When Galway really needed him he vanished.
Free over on the Cusack Stand in 2nd half…wide as a gate.
Are you saying that Clifford didn’t take the free from the right place or what are you saying?
And then Clifford steals a few yards as every freetaker does. The right thing there was to let it go, just as it would have been for the kickout.
The main one anyway was the free against Daly, Mountbellew have had no luck with referees the past 9 months. The final free for Kerry against Dublin was for putting the hand in and trying to wrest the ball away which is the very same thing Spillane was doing yesterday, the little bit of luck Kerry got for both decisions to go their way is what can make all the difference in trying to end a drought.
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Yes, but they are the rules.
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But did he actually steal yards?
You seem to be saying that he must have as all freetakers do.
Has the vanishing spray vanished from association football? It would solve any issues to do with free takers stealing yards, but in truth we do not want such issues to be solved because it would remove what is frequently fodder for furious discussion, which is what we want.
Every freetaker that kicks from the hand steals yards. The strike from the foot is always past the spot the free was awarded from. Do you think Clifford struck it from the spot the free was awarded? It’s a small thing that’s let go in the game because refs can’t and don’t call back every technical infringement. That’s why penalising a technical infringement was a bad call at that moment in the game. Galway derived no benefit so why are they penalised? The more you think about it the more it really shows very poor judgement.
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