Stop clock in GAA: Westmeath's Kevin Maguire says a countdown timer 'would make things fairer'

Westmeath manager Jack Cooney was unhappy with the timekeeping in his side's defeat to Kildare in the Leinster semi-final.

The Lake County came storming back late in the contest against Kildare, ultimately falling by three points to Glenn Ryan's charges.

Four minutes of additional time were announced, and referee Sean Hurson blew the full-time whistle with the clock at 74:04.

However, during the added time, Hurson twice held up play to brandish yellow cards to Kildare players - first preventing Westmeath from taking a quick free so he could book Tony Archibold, and then delaying a Lilywhites kickout to show a card to Alex Beirne.

"I'm watching football a long time and there's four and five minutes put up in injury-time, and there's always 45/50 seconds extra played, and we got an extra seven seconds there today. And that included a booking," Cooney said at full-time.

"All we needed was one chance, and not five or six seconds added on to the injury-time."

The players on the field were too caught up in the match itself to take notice of timing at that moment. But Westmeath star Kevin Maguire appreciates his manager's frustration at a lack of consistency.

"We were moving well. I think we'd kicked four points in a row. To be honest with you I was so caught up in that last 10 minutes of the game that I didn't even notice, I hadn't looked at a scoreboard," Maguire said.

"I felt we had a little bit of momentum at the time. Kildare were trying to, maybe towards the end, they were trying to hold onto the ball, a little bit of keeping us off it. So I can understand Jack's frustration.

"That's something that really needs to be looked at. It often happens in added time when teams try to slow down the game, there's a few fouls and it's kind of left to the ref's discretion to add on an extra 30 seconds or whatever to the added time.

"It happens sometimes and doesn't happen other times which, I suppose, isn't very consistent. So yeah, could be something worth looking at. I can understand his frustration."

It happens sometimes and doesn't happen other times which, I suppose, isn't very consistent.

One of the major differences between the men's and the women's game is that the LGFA uses a countdown 'stop clock' in matches.

And the GAA introducing that would be a potential solution to such instances.

"I feel like the only reason there isn't a stop clock in men's football is for the drama of the finish, that the ref is left to the discretion of, 'Right, let this ball play out and see how things go'," Maguire said.

"With the stop clock the game just ends and it's kind of a bit of an anti-climax. It's hard to weigh it up. But I do feel that teams do get hard done by at times. Refs have enough to be thinking about in Gaelic football, there's a lot of stuff going on on the pitch and now with marks and all of the different things.

"It would just make things a small bit fairer. Would it take away from the drama or the climax of a game? That's probably what they're trying to weigh up."