Colm O'Neill has claimed that there was a 'minute or so left' by referee Cormac Reilly before he converted his late free against Mayo.

The free reduced the deficit to the minimum but, from Rob Hennelly's resultant kick-out, Reilly blew his final whistle, leaving O'Neill and Cork furious. When O'Neill converted the free, there were almost 73 minutes played, with the two minutes of additional time signalled by the fourth official having elapsed.

While not going into any great detail about the controversial ending to the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final clash, the Cork free-taker told members of the media as he boarded the team bus that he believed there was still more time to be added.

Cork manager Brian Cuthbert revealed that the same message had also been relayed to selector Ciaran O'Sullivan by the referee, but he refused to blame the Meath official for the Rebels' championship exit.

"I saw him (O'Neill) have a conversation with the referee same as everyone else. Then he put the ball down and stroked it over the bar. Colm is an intelligent guy so I presume, whatever conversation he had with the referee, he deducted from that he had time," he said.

"Look, you're going to have calls for and against you, some days they go with you, some days they don't. We're certainly not looking at the referee as to why we're not going on to the semi-final.

"The lesson for us is don't put yourself in a position where you're hanging on for a last-minute free to decide whether you're going to have to go for a goal or wait for more time." Tweet

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