By the Numbers - the Hurling All-Stars

Three hundred and fifty of the six hundred and thirty All-Stars awarded over the forty-two years of the institution have gone to the Big Three counties. Kilkenny have 163, Cork 103 and Tipperary have 82. Galway’s six for this year sees them bring their total to 79 all-time, three short of Tipperary but well clear of the rest of the field.

Offaly and Limerick, joined forever in the memory by the incredible 1994 final, are joined on the All-Star roll of honour too. The Faithful and the Shannonsiders have 44 each. Clare have 42, Wexford 30, Waterford – the only county in double digits on the list who haven’t won an All-Ireland since the All-Stars began – have 29 and then list falls away to Antrim and Dublin with five each and Down and Westmeath with one each.

Down’s sole winner was Gerard McGrattan, who lined out at right half-forward on the 1992 team, the year he made his inter-county debut. Down won Ulster that year and gave a good account of themselves against Cork in semi-final. Westmeath’s sole All-Star was David Kilcoyne, who lined out at right corner-forward on the 1986 All-Star team. David was one of five Kilcoynes to wear the maroon and white in the 1980s.

Looking at the graph of All-Stars over the years for Kilkenny, Cork, Tipperary and Galway, we can see that All-Stars come in spurts. Kilkenny have led always but it’s only in the Cody era that they’ve really torn away from the chasing pack.

Part of the reason behind that the separation can be put down to Cork’s decline. Cork have won two All-Stars since their most recent strike. There may be something in that. There may not.

It’s interesting also to note that Tipperary were not forgotten during the famine that lasted from 1971 to 1987 – the kept winning the odd All-Star here and there. Bobby Ryan and Tommy Butler won one each during the famine, Francis Loughnane, Pat McLoughney and Tadhg O’Connor won two and Nicky English won three in a row before Richie Stakelum made his famous declaration of Premiership über alles in Killarney in the magical summer of 1987.

The All-Star era also saw the rise of Galway after they were released from Munster. They are now neck and neck with Tipperary in the All-Star Roll of Honour, twinned around each other like some sort of perpetual Keady Affair.

Comparing hurling with football, it’s interesting to note that spread of awards around the counties is much the same in hurling as in football – a ratio of 6:3:6 between the All-Ireland winners, the All-Ireland runners-up and the rest. This is despite the fact that that only thirteen counties have won hurling All-Stars, while 27 football counties have been so honoured. So, even though Kerry dominate the football All-Stars just as Kilkenny dominate the Kerry, it’s easier to win an odd award in football than in hurling.

Of the 630 football All-Stars, 236 have won just one All-Star. There are just 151 once-off hurling All-Star winners – all the others are multiple winners. In hurling, once you’re in, you’re in.

As regards the years themselves, the worst years for the winners were 1971 and 1979, when Tipperary and Kilkenny got only four each. 1983, 2000 and 2008 were the best years, when Kilkenny scooped nine each time. 2000 and 2008 were also the worst years for the runners-up, with only one gong to bring home after getting stomped in the final.

The best years for the runners-up were 1973 and this year, when the runners-up seven and six All-Stars outstripped the winners’ tally of five. Limerick got six All-Stars as runners-up in 1994 too, but it’s highly unlikely that made them feel any better. All Mayo wept in silent empathy and brotherhood with the Shannonsiders in 1994 and 1996, having known what it was to fall short ourselves. Still though; there’s always next year.

The Start of the League - Only Six Months to Wait Until It's for Keeps

Two thousand people at the Mayo v Roscommon FBD League game two weeks ago, and a palpable sense of expectation this week before Mayo host Down under lights in Castlebar on Saturday night. There is nothing like football to capture the imagination after the long and lonely winter.

Not that either game matters a whit, really, of course. There will be coverage in the papers this week about how great the League is and why don’t the GAA promote it more and look at Cork, weren’t they able to win the All-Ireland after winning the League first, who says the League isn’t important? And so on and so forth.

Please. The reality of the GAA season now is that there are four competitions. There are the provincial work the pints off games that have just finished, there is the National League, there are the backdoor games from May to July and then there is the only one that counts.

The only competition that counts is what’s left of the knockout blood and thunder Championship as we knew and loved it, reduced from a competition between thirty-two counties to one featuring just eight. The trick of the next seven months is ensuring that you’re one of those eight irrespective of how you get there, through front doors, back doors or windows if it comes to that.

That’s the frustrating thing about the first half of the year. Only bad things can happen. Every win is worthless. Every game reduces to a training session, where it’s only a question of what you learn about yourself and your team to be used when the real bullets are flying from August on. All else is shadow boxing.

Who won the last five Munster Championships? God only knows. It doesn’t matter. Those boys are playing for the big pot and if you want to be big time you’ve got to look at the world the way Kerry and Cork and Tyrone, God be kind to them and the burdens He’s asked those good people to bear, do.

Every game an inter county team with All-Ireland ambitions plays from the third Sunday in September until the end of July is about learning about yourself and becoming stronger. It’s important not to lose twice between May and July of course, but do your sums. The odds are heavily in favour of continued experimentation. If you do get a bullet twice, chances are you deserve it and are as well off at home.

This is not a great situation of course, and every year your faithful correspondent calls for the return of the old Championship but in the meantime we have to make do. An Spailpín Fánach would watch a Mayo team playing the Eton wall game and still consider it a treat. I doubt that I’m alone in that.

And the game against Down will be a treat. Down have been aristocrats of the game since they burst through in the 1960s. James McCartan’s recently published book, The King of Down Football, is on the bookshelf opposite my laptop and I am looking forward to tucking in and reading about how they forged their legend.

In the meantime, off to Castlebar for the weekend where we shall run the rule over our bucks and they shall run the rule over theirs. No harm done either way – it is, after all, only the League.

Cork Ascend into Glory

Cork 0-16
Down 0-15

After so many years of bitter disappointment, Cork ascended into glory when they won their seventh All-Ireland football title with a win over gallant Down in a wet Croke Park yesterday.

Down travelled under the weight of expectation drawn from the five teams before them who had never lost an All-Ireland final. Cork’s weight of expectation was even higher; had they fallen on Sunday, how could this generation have ever risen again?

For the first half-hour of the 2010 All-Ireland final it looked as though the day could only end in more rebel tears. Erratic shooting into the Hill saw Cork squander their early advantage in possession, while the Down forwards foraged for scraps and made the most of whatever came their way.

And then, the five minutes that changed the game as Cork laced over three quick points before the whistle to cut Down’s lead to three by half-time, 0-8 to 0-5. After struggling so hard to score in the first half it was like had Cork clicked into that higher gear that they’ve found so hard to find since losing to Kerry last year.

For Down, the writing was appearing on the wall, and it didn’t spell good news. They hadn’t made the most of their dominance, and Cork looked like they had found their form after a year’s search from Malin Head all the way back to their own Bantry Bay.

In the second half, the sands finally trickled out for Down. Martin Clarke, Down’s master of puppets, became less and less influential as the game wore on, shepherded by Cork’s imperious and talismanic Noel O’Leary.

The program tells us that O’Leary is a tree surgeon by profession – An Spailpín likes to think that O’Leary eschews the chainsaw to pull oak and cedar up by the roots with his bare, and think nothing of it. Yesterday, O’Leary took his instruction from the Book of Ruth, deciding that wither Martin Clarke goeth, Noel O’Leary doth also go.

But O’Leary was just one part, if a very important part, of what was the ultimate team triumph. This was the fundamental difference in the teams – Down could not live with Cork in terms of depth of talent. Look at the players who rose from the Cork bench – Graham Canty. Nicolas Murphy. Derek Kavanagh. Veterans of many campaigns, who were not going to let another summer end in disappointment.

It is to Down’s eternal credit that they still hung on as the waves of Cork pressure battered them, and a case could be made that Down were unlucky not to snatch a draw at the death. But for Cork to be denied would have been unjust and they well deserve their seventh All-Ireland football title.

FOCAL SCOIR: Croke Park is really going to have to look at its interval entertainment. Drumming is not music. Thirty seconds is bearable, in its context; Twenty minutes is criminal.

A Refusal to Mourne - Why Is Everyone So Down on Down?

An Spailpín Fánach is mystified at Down’s being written off prior to their All-Ireland semi-final this Sunday against Kildare. The great Kevin Egan, the GAA bettor’s greatest friend, advises a hearty punt on Kildare not just to win but to cover the -1 margin, bullishly adding that this is “the strongest recommendation this column has made for some time.”

Darragh Ó Sé couldn’t see Down winning no-how, no-way in yesterday’s Irish Times: “I’ve looked at it over and over and can’t see how Down can win. I see Kildare having a more comfortable win than Cork’s.”

Put aside, for the moment, the notion that Cork had an easy win last Sunday, and consider the rest of the statement. Darragh’s looked at it over and over and he still can’t see Down winning. At all. It’s tough but not impossible to see Tipp breaking Kilkenny’s hearts in the hurling without having to look at it over and over – how can Kildare have a better chance against Down than Kilkenny against Tipp? It doesn’t add up.

Of the three teams left in the competition, Down are a cracking, cracking price at 9/2 across the board to win their sixth title and pass Cavan as Ulster’s most successful team. Cork are already in the final but they are a team that is only just hanging together while Kildare’s signature win was against a team that was too chicken to play Louth. Louth!

Down, by contrast, are only the bunch of bums and layabouts that handed out a considerable scutching to the All-Ireland Champions. There is speculation that Kerry were on their last legs, and Down beat them just by virtue of their being the team that turned up on the day.

If Kerry were playing Kildare tomorrow, would Kerry be an 11/8 underdog? The science of handicapping has more twists than simple substitutions, of course, but the broad stroke remains true – Down are not being given credit for beating Kerry. As they’re the only team to beat Kerry in a quarter-final since the introduction of the damnable Qualifiers ten years ago, they should be given more credit for that achievement than they are.

Ambrose Rodgers is a huge lose for Down of course, but does a missing Dermot Earley not balance things out?

People are talking about Kildare’s scoring threat. Down scored some pretty nice points against Kerry, and machine-gunned poor Sligo off the pitch. They’ll be able to keep up with the scores. Down’s defence is a risk but, as they demonstrated against Kerry, denying ball to the opposition can take the bad look off any defence. Kildare start slowly while Down strike quickly and ruthlessly. How much of a lead can Kildare spot Down without going past their elastic limit? All these are serious points of consideration.

And finally, there is the question of tradition. Tradition counts. The history of Down in the 90s and the 60s was to come from nowhere and scorch all before them. Down have had some bad years but talent has been bubbling under – their Under-21s gave Mayo an absolute lesson in Longford a few years ago, Martin Clarke is home from Australia, Benny Coulter has to be singing it’s now or never in the showers – there’s a lot coming together for them.

Whoever wins on Sunday need have no fear of Cork either. Cork were extremely lucky to get past Dublin last Sunday. The worries by the banks of the Lee that Conor Counihan doesn’t know his best fifteen should now be exacerbated by the appearance of him now not being able to tell whether or not a player is even fit to play.

Not only that, but Cork clearly hadn’t the first notion how to counteract Dublin’s infamous method and were lost lambs with fifteen minutes to go until, for reasons best known to himself, Ross O’Connell put Cork right back in the game.

Cork may well win the All-Ireland and if they do, they’ll deserve it of course. All-Irelands aren’t easily won. But nobody is running in fear of Cork the way they were last year until Kerry beat them in the All-Ireland. Cork have never come back from the boxing they took in the All-Ireland last year and, unless they have saved seventy minutes from somewhere, that will leave them vulnerable to whoever wins the semi-final on Sunday. An Spailpín’s dollar sees Sam making his way back to Down. Down, down, deeper and down. Get down, deeper and down. Down, down, deeper and down...