By Kevin Egan

ROBERT Finnerty’s ‘throw’ to Paul Conroy pinged by referee Seán Hurson before the St. James’ man slotted over a first half point that never was; Connor Gleeson being deemed to have been forced over his own end line, allowing Cormac Costello to stroke over a 45 to make it 0-8 to 0-3; Dylan McHugh making a tremendous block on John Small, only for the loose ball to break perfectly for Ciaran Kilkenny to slot over his only point of the game.

On the flip side, we present the sideline ball after 58 minutes that was awarded to Galway despite seeming to take a final touch off Jack Glynn, leading to a Cillian McDaid point; Dessie Farrell’s decision to hold off on the introduction of Paddy Small and let Cormac Costello take (and miss) that late free with his right foot, rather than subbing in the Ballymun man to take the shot with his left; and of course that late, late chance for Con O’Callaghan that was pushed wide of the target.

The nature of one-point games is such that there are invariably bundles of ‘what if’ moments that either team could look back on and say that if this refereeing call or that lucky break had fallen differently, the result would be completely different.

Despite this, the knee jerk reaction after games like last Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final is often to suggest that the winners did nearly everything right, and the losing side were miles off the pace, and that has certainly happened. Any number of column inches have been written that suggest that this golden generation of Dublin footballers has had their day, and that the boys in blue will be unrecognisable in the near future, stripped of so many talismanic figures.

Meanwhile Galway have been credited with having come through a Graduation Day of sorts, where the swathes of players that have come through from the side that won All-Ireland U-20 medals of four years ago have now been deemed to have come of age.

Pictured: Galway defender Séan Mulkerrin getting the better of Dublin’s Ciaran Kilkenny during Sunday’s All-Ireland senior football quarter-final at Croke Park. Photo: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile.