Kearney disappointed by ruling

Speaking on Friday Kearney said he was disappointed with the decision, but not because the Bannsiders hopes of being reinstated to the competition were dashed.

“We watched on to see what would happen and to be honest I’m disappointed with the outcome,” he said.

“But I have to state it has nothing to do with not being reinstated to the Irish Cup.

“We were well beaten by Warrenpoint on the day and they deserved to have the place in the next round. Plus Forsyth only came on for the final few minutes to he had no impact on the result, but rules are rules.

“My interest in the outcome though was in relation to how we were treated with regards to the Ruairi Harkin case.

“Both ourselves and Warrenpoint made unconscious decisions to play the players without realising there have been a breach of the rules.

“But ultimately Warrenpoint were cleared of any wrong doing whereas we had the book thrown at us.

“It’s harsh as we were the ones who noticed the issue with Ruairi and alerted the authorities to it. So we had a lot of issues as to how our case was dealt with and we felt we had plenty of grounds to be exonerated, but as I said we were punished and Warrenpoint haven’t been.

“It is very frustrating and highlights a lot of inconsistencies.

“I felt for Barry Gray when the news broke last weekend, obviously because we have experienced that not too long ago. Unfortunately for us we had our knuckles rapped for what was an unconscious decision while other teams go unpunished.”