There was huge drama at the end of Galway's draw with Tyrone with Shane Walsh levelling the game up with a two-pointer, with the last kick of the game.
Mattie Donnelly looked like he'd scored the winner when he swung over a beauty from beyond the arc, giving Tyrone a two-point lead with time almost up.
Tyrone had 14 men on the field for the majority of those closing moments with defender Peter Teague having been shown a black card. Malachy O'Rourke's men only had two forwards up, perfectly okay within the current rules, for the duration of Teague's black card.
But Teague returned to the play as a defender and Tyrone failed to address the numerical imbalance, meaning they were defending with thirteen men as Galway hunted down a late equaliser.
They defended with thirteen men for over a minute before Michael McKernan was adjudged to have fouled the ball inside the 21, giving Galway a late chance from a free.
2 March 2025; Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Referee Brendan Cawley was informed of Tyrone's three-up breach during the stoppage of play and penalised Tyrone by giving Galway a free from the 21.
Walsh was of course allowed to bring the free outside the arc for a two-point attempt and he swung it over, into the breeze, off the right.
The whistle blew in Tuam Stadium and Galway had survived. There were a whole host of different rules at play in the game's closing stages, as Ciaran Whelan discussed on The Sunday Game. But he 'fundamentally' doesn't agree with the two-pointer, especially when it comes to two-point frees.
"The one thing I don't like about it and it's probably one of the reasons why I questioned the two-pointer is that, to be able to get a two-point free, for a technical breach...to me, I fundamentally don't agree with it.
"Tyrone will feel it's a game left behind them. They had the chance to win the two points, but Galway got away with one."
💬 "It was loads of different rule dynamics within that"
Ciáran Whelan breaks down the rules-related confusion towards the end of the draw between Tyrone and Galway
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