Donal Óg Cusack says referee James Owens should have “admitted to making a mistake” and ordered Waterford’s Stephen Bennett to retake his penalty against Tipperary.

The Wexford match official came in for criticism after he ran across the eyeline of Tipp goalkeeper Barry Hogan just before Bennett dispatched the third-minute penalty to the net during last Saturday's Munster SHC clash at Walsh Park.

"There was one bizarre incident at the start of the Waterford game with (referee) James Owens - and we gave him praise for giving a good advantage,” the former Cork goalkeeper said on The Sunday Game.

"There used to be a game before called 'spot the ball' and I think if you were going to say 'spot the referee' nobody would pick him (to be where he was).

"It was a mistake. You could see Barry Hogan rightly questioning, 'James, what were you doing going across me?'. It is the kind of thing goalkeepers do in practice.

"He should have just admitted to making a mistake and taken it again. Everybody makes mistakes.”

Cusack added: "It's worth making the point, you'd want to be a very brave person to be a referee.

"But because of the challenges they have - there's so much going on - they need their umpires on the ball, which they're not in general, and also their linesmen helping them and very often they're not doing that either."

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