Replays showed Gillane grabbing onto the hand and hurley of O’Donoghue, yet it was the Cork defender who was deemed the guilty party and yellow carded.

Limerick went on to win the game by a solitary point, the result securing their place in the provincial decider and, in the process, bringing Cork’s campaign to an end.

O’Donoghue has little issue with Gillane’s wiliness. Similarly, he knows it is unrealistic to expect an already overburdened referee to catch and call out every bit of cuteness.

“People can blame Gillane all they want but, if I was told, ‘You’ll get away with three fouls today and you’ll beat Limerick,’ I’d do it,” the Cork corner-back remarked.

“It’s the same thing saying you can look at referees, but how is the ref meant to watch Gillane holding on to me when he’s looking at the fella on the ball? It’s frustrating at times and I think it needs to be looked at.” 

A solution, he offers, could be to have a qualified referee wearing the umpire’s white coat. An extra pair of trained eyes at either end of the field to ensure no player is wrongly and unjustly penalised because of an opponent's off-the-ball craftiness.

“More power for the umpires, but I also think at least one umpire should be a referee,” O’Donoghue continued.

“Sometimes, the umpires are the referee’s friends and they’re not trained to be dealing with those kinds of situations. If you had a referee behind each goal, maybe they wouldn’t be calling it, but if the referee misses something, they could go back and call it then.

“Another thing is the TMO or a video reviewer or that kind of stuff, but I think if you started with a referee behind the goal, it would help a lot.

“It’s gone very fast now, and you have fellas trying different things and getting away with it. We probably get away with things as well, it’s not just Limerick, but it should be about trying to make it a bit better for fellas 

“You’re giving up, whatever, five evenings a week for hopefully seven or eight months. If you were to lose a game or get knocked out based off a referee’s decision, something he hasn’t seen or he can’t see, it’s a bit unfair on fellas.” 

Cork have three weeks until their championship opener. O’Donoghue is ravenous for road. Easily know why. This time last year, he was in the middle of a three-and-a-half-month sideline spell because of a dead leg.

Reduced to half an hour of league fare after suffering what was thought to be an innocuous injury on the opening night of the league, he ended up missing Cork’s opening two Munster round-robin games.

“I think it was 14 weeks overall by the time I was able to take the field again. I just wanted to be part of it, really. When things were going well – we beat Waterford and drew with Tipp (in Munster), probably a game we could have won but could have lost it as well – I was missing being out there with the lads, really, being in the dressing room after the game and stuff like that.

“You don’t feel like you’re really part of it if you’re injured, so that’s what I missed the most.”