The performance of referee Noel Mooney in Saturday's Allianz FL Division 3 final left a lot to be desired, according to Kildare manager Cian O'Neill.

The Lilywhites were caught on the line by Clare and, afterwards, O'Neill told The Examiner: "I'm perplexed a lot of the time by some of the decisions.

"I don't think it was the referee's fault we lost the game. I've no issue with people making mistakes but when the rules aren't carried forward, that would be a concern.

"There were a couple of things in terms of the legality of decisions, I thought they were wrong, as in the interpretation of the rule was wrong."

O'Neill added that they only had themselves to blame for the 1-19 to 2-17 defeat and that their defending is a major cause of concern looking ahead to the championship.

"Particularly in the first half… we let them in too easily in terms of those frees. It's great to deny a man the ball but the guys have to learn that that's only the first phase.

"If he does get the ball, let's get into the second phase which is delaying them, stopping them, dispossessing them. We just gave away some soft frees that were needless in many cases.

"There's obviously areas of our game we're still trying to improve upon and we've time to do that.

"I'd rather learn these valuable lessons today, in a League final, than in a Leinster Championship."

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