Gavin: we were playing the ref as well
September 23, 2013
Dublin manager Jim Gavin with children Yasmin and Jude.
©INPHO/Donall Farmer.
The Dubs boss questioned the 32-12 free count against his team - and the display of the Cavan official.
"Twelve frees? That's just beyond me. I can't understand that, I really can't," he told the Irish Independent.
"That's one of the very disappointing things. Not only were we playing Mayo but we were playing the referee as well."
He added: "It's a fight that we have in every game, that opposition players are getting more frees than we are and we work very hard on the art of defending and the technical tackle. An awful lot of work on that.
"It's disappointing. That's an enormous number of frees to give away in a any game."
The victorious manager defended his players against criticism of 'cynical fouling' in the closing stages of the contest.
"They (the players) were frustrated. That free-count is just not acceptable. Anybody here can ask me are Dublin a cynical team and we're not.
"We play the game with certain values in the squad and we play the game the way we believe it should be played and to have that number (of frees) …
"At the end, that was just Dublin players getting frustrated. For the whole game, there is a double count going against us. All the time. And it's not only today. We probably kept our counsel for most of the games but that has been the trend in all the games." Tweet
