Kevin McHugh feels card happy officials 'ruined the game'

A first half of chasing their tails and then a second half of chasing the game, but to no avail, was how Kevin McHugh described Finn Harps’ league season opener against Athlone Town last Friday night.

“We scored a goal, and then we took a back foot. I thought we played into Athlone's hands in terms of the way we passed it round, it was just slow and lethargic,” was how he described his team’s performance in their 2-1 defeat.

“Instead of playing the ball forward, I thought we played it back too many times and it just invited pressure.

“Athlone were the better team in the first half, there's no getting away from it. They deserved their 2-1 lead. For probably a period of the second half, Athlone were on top as well. Then I thought when we made the changes for that last 20-25 minutes, we really put it up to them and we could have got an equaliser. Whether it's a justified equaliser or not, I'm not sure, but I thought we were well worth an equaliser in the second half.”

In a game where the tempo of Athlone Town’s play left Harps chasing shadows in the first half, the visitors were more competitive and even abrasive in the second half. Daniel De Lacerda’s second yellow card was the sixth in total picked up by a Harps player, and McHugh felt that the referees didn’t make any allowance for the natural passion and competitiveness that was always going to follow.

“I see it all the time, referees getting stick and they bring it on themselves,” he said.

“Some of the decisions and some of the yellow cards were just crazy. There was one bad challenge in that game in total that deserved a yellow card, and I think there was about six or seven. It's the same every year, any time somebody fouls somebody, it seems to be a yellow card.

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“I'm trying to hold back because I know it's a tough job being a referee but it's very frustrating as a coach and staff that every time somebody goes down there's a yellow card being flashed and then people are on eggshells the whole game. It does affect the game, and it's just disappointing that the refereeing collective is going to be the same this year again throwing out yellows. I'm looking at FlashScore, and I see yellows and reds all over the country. It's mind-boggling at times”.

One disagreement in particular seemed to sum up McHugh’s frustration.

“The fourth official came over to me and said that you can’t put your hands in the air, and I go, okay, so you want me to sit on the bench with my hands in my pockets?

“It’s an emotional game, you kick every ball, you head every ball, these people have to understand this. They have to understand that there's going to be mistimed tackles. It's the first league game of the season, and I just thought it was poor for them to flash so many yellow cards. To me, it ruined the game.

“It ruined the game for us certainly because I thought Daniel had a superb game, and he definitely didn't deserve to be coming off here with a red card. He misses next week, but Daniel settled in really well, so we're going to take the positives from tonight.

“Now we move on to UCD next week as quick as we can because we had way too many draws last year, and that's something we wanted to address this year. We're not going to be sitting back waiting for games. We're going to go for games and if it means it's going to be end-to-end at times and it's going to be open, then so be it.”