Mark Coleman has revealed that referee James Owens told the Cork players after Sunday’s Munster SHC final that it isn’t his job to tell them when it’s the last play.The Rebels’ stand-in captain delivered the final puck of the game, a pass to Tim O’Mahony. It was immediately followed by Owens calling time before the midfielder could get away his attempt at an equaliser. That shot ultimately dropped short into the square as the Limerick players began their celebrations.Coleman was among those to approach the referee as he walked off, querying the timekeeping after they had elected to go short from a last-gasp free.“I just said to James Owens afterwards that I wasn’t aware it was the last puck of the game and he said it’s not up to him to be telling you it’s the last puck of the game,” said Coleman.On reflection, the 28-year-old takes “no issue” with Owens’s handling of the situation and feels the Wexford whistler was “probably right” in his interpretation of the rules.When asked about the perception that Owens is not particularly talkative with players on the field, Coleman replied: “I must say the last day that I had a few conversations with him during the game. He was fine the last day.“But it’s not up to him to be talking to players really. Some refs have their own style, but I have no issue with James Owens at all. If you were to go by the letter of the law, he probably had a good game.“We just have to accept that we were beaten by a better team. I’m not going to sit here blaming James Owens for anything.“He’s probably right. It’s probably not up to him to tell me that this has to be the last puck of the game. He blows the whistle when he feels the time is up and that’s it.”Coleman also explained Cork’s rationale behind Patrick Collins playing the final free short.After signalling the foul, Owens had moved to the other end of the field. While Coleman saw the clock pass 77 minutes, he guessed there was enough time to work a pass before shooting.Cork hurler Mark Coleman with the Liam MacCarthy Cup at Blarney Castle, Cork, at a launch for the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. Photograph: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile “You just don’t know how long . . . sometimes they play over a bit,” he said. “Tim probably would have hit it, only he got a bit of a knock or he was winded or something. Then Pa came up to hit it.“We obviously weren’t aware that it was the last puck of the game at the time. But with the wind that was there, Pa probably wouldn’t have had the distance for it, so we were trying to increase our probability of scoring by going short.“Obviously, if we’d have known it was the last puck of the game, we would have shot. But we weren’t aware at the time.”While acknowledging that he has yet to watch the match back, Coleman feels Cork fell short of the performance required to deserve victory.“We didn’t do enough in the second half to get over the line. You have to be scoring a bit more to be beating Limerick especially. It was difficult conditions, but you still want to be getting a few more scores on the board. Ultimately, the better team won.”Cork couldn’t feed enough possession into their forwards, failing to score from play after Brian Hayes’s 38th-minute goal. They raised no point from play, nor any open-play attempt at a white flag, from the half-hour mark onwards.[ How Limerick managed to tilt Cork game in their favourOpens in new window ]“When you’re playing into a wind like that, you’re very limited in the range of puck-outs you can hit, especially with the way Limerick set up,” said Coleman.“Their half-back line are very good at covering space. You’re nearly forced to puck it down on top and trying to overload one side or something like that.“When the wind is that strong, you’re not going to be able to spray it into space because they’re going to have their half forwards cutting it out and they’re going to have their wing backs set up well to deal with that.“They’re so strong in that area of the pitch, they were able to force us long and get their good players under it. I’m not sure of the stats, but we did win a good few as well. It wasn’t like we were cleaned out on the long puck-outs.“We just didn’t do enough when we did get the ball. We had a few chances that we missed as well.”