The Sporting Year: Review and Preview

It is a bittersweet thing indeed that the sporting year of 2012 ends on the death of Páidí Ó Sé. “Legend” is the most overused word in sports, but Páidí Ó Sé transcended the narrow bounds of that cliché long ago.

Where other men are legends, Páidí was an icon; others on that great Kerry of the 1970s were more admired and it’s possible Eoin “The Bomber” Liston was more loved, but nobody represented parish and people, the DNA of the GAA itself, better or more proudly than Páidí Ó Sé.

His bar in Ventry is a GAA grotto. The greatest cynic of that particularly Kerry cuteness that Tom Humphries identified as “the Republic of Yerra” could not help but be swept away by the aura of the place, the rich sense of the history tucked up against the Atlantic, where so much of the world’s history and culture was once stored, many hundreds of years ago.

Páidí Ó Sé’s life was short but few lives have been so full. Suaimhneas síoraí ar a anam Gaelach uasal.

In this year’s iteration of the football championship that Páidí Ó Sé graced for so long, Mayo lost; they always lose.

In hurling, the crown tottered on Kilkenny’s head as the All-Ireland final turned into its third and final act, but Henry Shefflin did nothing less than impose the majesty of his talent on the game. Shefflin moved to centre-half forward to dominate the game and rescue Kilkenny in their hour of greatest need of this decade they have dominated. Galway had no answer in the replay and Kilkenny continue at the very top of the tree.

Donegal were the best team in the football Championship of course. If you wish to see a team as being a symbiosis of coaching, talent and tactics, seldom can the three strands have combined as well as they did for Donegal this year. Donegal swept through the Championship as a burning flame, and nobody ever really made them sweat. It was a year of sheer dominance by Donegal from start to finish, like a racehorse winning the Derby from wire to wire.

Keith Duggan wrote a stirring call to arms for Donegal in the Irish Times in the week after the final, suggesting that they had it in them to dominate football for years to come. And it’s possible, but my goodness it’s a big ask. Only two teams have retained the title in the past twenty-two years, and the intensity of Donegal this year will surely be hard to replicate in 2013 – not least after a winter of celebration.

The current All-Ireland odds have Donegal as joint favourites with Kerry. This is a little surprising as Kerry are meant to be rebuilding, but then anytime the Championship seems wide open it’s the Usual Suspect that generally collects it.

Jim Gavin’s new model Dublin could be worth a bet at a best price 5/1 while it’s hard to know quite what to make of Cork in Championship terms. The Rebels are undoubted League specialists with their three League titles in a row and that can never be taken away from them. The League is the second most important inter-county competition after all.

Mayo are the last of the top five contenders at best price 12/1, shorter than they generally start seasons. After a semi-final in James Horan’s first year and a final in his second, there are only two places for Horan to go in his third year, and all Mayo prays it’ll be the good place rather than the alternative.

Mayo’s series of All-Ireland failures mean that the Championship for them is now a seventy-minute one, that doesn’t start until half-three on the third Sunday in September. Everything else is just a super-long League. It’s neither fair nor just, but that’s how it is.

Rugby has the excitement of a Lions tour next summer, which always adds a frisson for the home nations in the Championship. It’s hard to know how Ireland will do; the golden generation is now dead and gone and there is evidence for a reasonable campaign in the Six Nations and for an abject disaster. As ever, the first game sets the tone and Ireland’s campaign begins in Cardiff, where the Welsh are reeling from the effects of a disappointing summer and a particularly wretched autumn. We’ll wait and see.

2012 was an Olympic year of course, with Katie Taylor’s victory (and Seán Bán Breathnach’s marvellous commentary) the highlight for Ireland. Good for Katie but it’s fair to say, now that the dust has died down, that people got carried away hailing her as the greatest Irish sportswoman ever. This blog coughs discreetly, and suggests that honour remains with Sonia O’Sullivan.

In soccer, 2012 will be remembered as the year when the plucky Irish lost their major Championship innocence. After the drama of Saipan, the glory of America, the incredible, nation-building summers of 1990 and 1988, Ireland’s dream lasted just three minutes, until Mario Mandžukić headed home the goal that exposed Ireland as a busted flush.

The dream lasted as long as it takes to boil an egg. Ireland were humiliated and Giovanni Trapattoni’s reputation left in tatters in a series of nightmare matches. The best reaction was Liam Brady’s during the Spanish game, when the great man remarked that the majority of the Irish team had never played against the likes of the Spanish. They were as baffled by them as a Sunday league pub side would be.

And in the meantime, the supporters sang on. There was some vicious reaction back home to the singing, but in truth, what else could they do? There were people in Mayo jersies out drinking pints after the All-Ireland. Life goes on, and there’s always next year to dream anew.

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.

By the Numbers - the Gaelic Football All-Stars

Donegal’s haul of eight All-Stars puts Donegal 2012 joint second on the list for the most dominating performance of All-Ireland football champions at the All-Stars. Of course, the All-Stars aren’t quite the most accurately calibrated metric in a country that is generally adverse to precision, but come on. The winter is almost here and we need to make the most of what’s left of the summer’s fun before the frost covers the green isle once more.

Besides; questionable though the process behind the All-Stars might be, they are very much part of what we are. Or at least, the poster is.

They don’t seem to make them any more, but once the All-Star poster was an essential feature of any self-respecting Irish bar, and it is a reasonable rule of thumb to posit that the older the poster, the sweeter the poster. There’s a fine selection the GAA museum, with those distinctive black borders and the mugshots of men’s men. Reader, treat yourself sometime.

Looking at the 630 awards over 42 years, we discover that the typical All-Star team breaks down at an average of six All-Ireland winners, three runners-up and six of the rest. The football of the year, which began 1995, is generally from the champions too – Peter Canavan in 1995, Steven McDonnell in 2003 and Bernard Brogan in 2010 are the exceptions.

The biggest haul of All-Stars for All-Ireland champions is nine, which happened twice. Those years were 1977 and 1981, the bookend years of Kerry’s four-in-a-row. This year’s Donegal join Tyrone in 2005 with their eight awards – 2005 saw only three counties, Tyrone, Kerry and Armagh, honoured at the All-Stars, the lowest number ever. So much for the back door shining a light on the little guy.

The lowest haul of All-Stars for the champions is four, which has happened four times. Offaly won four in 1971, the first year of the All-Stars, when a highest-ever ten counties were honoured. Dublin got only 4 All-Stars in 1983, when they boxed their way past Galway in a notoriously ill-tempered game.

Down, astonishingly, got only four All-Stars in 1991 while Meath, whom Down defeated in the final, got six. This is the only time the losers have got more All-Stars than the champions.

There have been three years when the All-Stars divided equally between the champions and the losing finalists – 1971, that great year when all men stood equal saw the champions, Offaly, and the runners-up, Galway, got four each. 1996 and 2010 saw five each to the winners and losers of those years.

The most honoured of the runners-up were Meath in 1991, which was also the year of their famous marathon encounter against Dublin in the Leinster Championship. Three Dubs from that remarkable series had to decide between beef or salmon in the Burlington that year – Keith Barr, Tommy “Tom” Carr and Mick “Michael” Deegan.

Mayo have four All-Stars this year, which is above the average for All-Ireland runners-up. There has never been a year when no runner-up was nominated but there have been two years when just one runner-up got an All-Star and nine years when they got just two. There is nothing like getting tonked on the fourth Sunday in September to make footballers look bad before the gentlemen of the press.

There have been seven years when the All-Stars who didn’t play in the All-Ireland made up more than half the All-Star team. The biggest assembly of these was in 1983, of course. Ten players from seven different counties were awarded that year. Down and Offaly got two each, even though neither won their provinces. Jack O’Shea, who was captain of Kerry in 1983, got one as well, almost certainly on the strength of his sheer Jacko-icity.

Nine All-Stars came from outside the final in 1997 and 2007. The 1997 Leinster Champions Offaly got only one All-Star, corner-back Cathal Daly, as did Ulster Champions Cavan, whose great midfielder Dermot Cabe was slotted in at wing-forward.

Each province knows what it is to be left without a representative on the All-Star team, but only Connacht has had that dubious honour more than once. Seven times, in fact – 1975, 1982, 1988, 2005 and three years in a row, between 2007 and 2009. Sligo’s Charlie Harrison broke the duck in 2010.

Just four counties have won over half of the 630 awards over 42 years – Kerry have 127, Dublin have 86, Cork have 64 and Meath have 49. Tyrone is the leading Ulster county on 40 while Galway heads the list for Connacht with 37. There are seven counties, including London and New York, who have yet to win any All-Stars at all, with Limerick and Longford perhaps the hardest done by out of those seven in recent years.

Donegal Worthy of All-Ireland Win

There can be very few football games as easy to analyse as the 2012 All-Ireland Football Final. If, somewhere far off in deep space, an alien race were watching events unfold at Croke Park from their own strange planet, they would come to the same two conclusions as everyone who saw the game.

Firstly, scoring two goals in the first ten minutes of a game of gaelic football gives a team a considerable advantage. Secondly, even though those two goals can be worked back, especially if the scorers go into their shell a little bit rather than press home their advantage, it’s no real uses unless the opposition’s scoring chances are taken when they come.

And so it came to pass. Donegal, that team built to command from the heights, got a perfect start. They then seemed to hesitate slightly and sit on the lead, allowing Mayo to come back, which Mayo, to their eternal credit, did.

But it was never enough. Mayo reduced the deficit from seven at its worst to three a number of times during the course of the game and if they could have brought it back to two or one, maybe Mayo could have pulled off one of the greatest-ever Croke Park comebacks.

But they didn’t. Points weren’t scored early in the second half that would have put Mayo cats among Donegal pigeons and by the end a desperate Mayo were reduced to hoping for the goals that Donegal not only haven’t conceded but haven’t looked like conceding all year.

In the dying minutes, Mayo substitute Séamus O’Shea looked liked a man high-stepping through meadow as he tried to pick his way through the packed Donegal rearguard until their was clear room to shoot. And that was something nobody’s found in front of the Donegal goals all year.

Donegal are correctly praised for their system but systems only take you so far. Gaelic football is like few field sports in that the very nature of the game means you must attack. Negativity has its fixed horizons, but only creativity can truly set you free.

So while Donegal’s system has revolutionised this year’s Championship, it should be noted and noted well that the system would be nothing without Michael Murphy and Colm McFadden to put them over the bar or into the net, as appropriate.

A system can take you so far but only talent can bring you home. All Donegal should be proud of their fine team, their fine manager and their fine players. It hasn’t always been easy to maintain a first-class football tradition in Donegal. Isolation, emigration and the strong influence of soccer from the county’s historic association with Scotland all make the current generation’s achievements all the more remarkable. More luck to them, and may they winter well.

For Mayo, it was just another kick in the head, of course. Mayo have been posterized so often now that there is a danger that the wind may change and the county would be left that way.

Mayo are in the bizarre position now where a day out in Croke Park is like a visit to the dentist. It’s something that has to be done but it’s not something any sane person would look forward to. It’s just something you need to get done if you are every to know peace. Is there any team that has so long a list of losses in finals, with no respite? It’s hard to think of one.

There will be repercussions from the defeat, but not seismically so. More local tremors. The County Board will have to face a reckoning over a very thought-provoking ticket distribution policy, but on the field people release that this is a young team with many cornerstones in place.

There was speculation before the game that Mayo were a “team without stars” – how, then, could you describe David Clarke, or Ger Cafferkey, or Keith Higgins, or Aidan O’Shea, or Kevin McLoughlin, or Cillian O’Connor? None of those boys are over thirty either.

Horan has spent the first two years of his reign searching for a forward combination that will knit. He hasn’t quite cracked it but once he does, only good things can happen.

And so Donegal go on the beer while Mayo go into hibernation until the FBD League. Hopefully, there’ll be snow for that first FBD game. It always adds to the atmosphere, somehow.

And then the snow thaws and the shadow-boxing of the National League starts and then, all of a sudden, the summer is here and it’s time another run at Sam, 62 years on. I said to someone this weekend that we have measured out our lives in Championships. There are worse things to measure lives by.

Donegal and Mayo in the Theatre of the Remarkable

Donegal are rightful favourites for this year’s All-Ireland. In other years when they were in the final, it seemed like Mayo were the story – would this be the year the county would finally break free from the House of Pain? This year, the final is about Donegal, and Mayo are hoping for the best.

Donegal have delivered what has been, up to this final, one of the most astonishing campaigns we’ve ever seen in the Championship. It’s not just that Donegal have beaten teams – they’ve hammered them, broken them, laid them waste and scattered their bones to the wind.

Donegal have pillaged the opposition the way the Vikings pillaged Ireland one thousand years ago. The apprehension felt by teams before facing Donegal is like that felt by the monk writing in his round tower in the ninth century, preferring the howling of the gale to the howling of the Norsemen:

“Since tonight the wind is high
The sea’s white mane a fury
I need not fear the hounds of Hell
Coursing the Irish Channel.”

Donegal mess with heads. Darragh Ó Sé tipped Mayo in his typically excellent column in yesterday’s Irish Times, but earlier in the year, Darragh had a different story. After Donegal pounded Down to win Donegal’s second straight Ulster title, Ó Sé wrote:

“Donegal take you out of your comfort zone. Everybody knows what it feels like to go out and play a game of football – it’s the most natural thing in the world, the one thing that feels most familiar in an inter county player’s world.

But Donegal get you doing things you don’t want to, they get you worrying about systems and angles of running and fast-break attacks. They do everything they can to make it feel unnatural. You’re thrown off your stride immediately and you spend the rest of the game trying to get it back.”

That’s how Donegal smash teams. That’s how they smashed Cork. By the second half of the first All-Ireland semi-final, Cork were reduced to stringing men across their defence and hoped to God they would be able to withstand whatever terrors Donegal would hurl at them next.

And withstand they didn’t. Cork, that fine team, those big beasts of men, were blown away, just as every other team have been blown away this year by Donegal’s unstoppable force.

And now Mayo face that fearsome Northern fury. The very fact that Mayo are back in another All-Ireland Final two years after the miserable end to John O’Mahony’s Second Coming in Pearse Park, Longford, is testimony to two factors.

The new manager, James Horan, is the number one catalyst of course, but the richness of the often-derided football tradition in the county can't be ignored. If Mayo were chokers, they would have curled up and died by now. They haven’t. They’ve come back, just like they do.

Mayo would be the story of the year if Donegal did not exist. James Horan and Jim McGuinness are similar in many ways, 21st Century managers of 21st Century teams. And while Donegal are deserving favourites, that doesn’t mean Mayo haven’t a hope.

Firstly, as Ó Sé pointed out yesterday, Mayo’s previous experience will stand to them. Because the county became a punchline to a series of middling jokes after those All-Ireland losses that’s not immediately obvious, but it’s true.

 The All-Ireland final is not like any other game. People tell you the principles of poker are the same when you play for matches as when you play for money. The principles may be the same, but the actuality of the game is completely different. You think differently, and play differently, once you’ve suddenly got something to lose.

All of a sudden, Donegal have a lot to lose. Their magnificent season isn’t worth a hill of beans if they come second on Sunday. Ask Mayo. They know. Donegal haven’t felt that white heat of All-Ireland Final day before. Mayo have, and are stronger because of it.

Secondly, it’s interesting to note how differently the two campaigns have gone. Donegal came, saw and conquered in all their games. Mayo had to sweat against Sligo, lost their captain against Down and hung on for dear life against the All-Ireland Champions.

Mayo 2012 don’t do panic. In both the Connacht Final and the All-Ireland semi-final, Mayo have successfully implemented Plan B. If Jimmy McGuinness has to reach for Plan B at half-post four on Sunday, what happens then?

Of course, something remarkable will have to happen for Donegal’s Plan A not to have worked, as it’s worked a dream so far. But this is the All-Ireland Final. This is the theatre of the remarkable.

Two weeks ago it looked like Kilkenny’s magnificent hurling imperium of the past decade was finally coming to an end. But it didn’t, because Henry Shefflin would not allow it to happen. Shefflin delivered one of his greatest performances on the greatest stage. All-Ireland Finals are like that. They can inspire men to write new histories.

Mayo have the experience of the big day and nobody knows what Donegal will be like if the system starts to go wrong and time starts to tick away. In no place on Earth does time tick away as quickly as on the last day of the Championship, as the autumnal sky darkens and winter can be tasted on the wind.

If Donegal hold their nerve and play to their pattern, they win, they will deserve to win and they will be magnificent Champions. If not, Mayo can turn a page and use Game 5 of Year 2 to deliver that long-awaited Sam 4. Mayo to win. Mayo, Mayo, Mayo. Always Mayo.

Resilience and Realism Win the Day for Mayo

Mayo have been involved in many extraordinary Championship displays over the years. Some extraordinarily good, some extraordinarily bad. But neither Nostradamus, the Oracle at Delphi nor Paul the Octopus from the 2010 World Cup could have foreseen the drama at Croke Park on Sunday, as Mayo beat Dublin to advance to their thirteenth All-Ireland Final appearance.

The general wisdom was that the Dublin v Mayo game would be a cagey affair. Instead, Mayo turned up to shoot the lights out in a way that few in the county would have thought possible, even in their wildest of dreams.

Mayo people looked at the teamsheet and didn’t see scores. They saw good lads who’d break their hearts for the green and red but they didn’t see any Joe Corcorans or JP Keans or Noel Durkins. The fact that all of the forwards scored turned that preconception on its head and those Mayo forwards are the toast of Mayo for the week.

Not that the win was down to the forwards alone. The Mayo defence has been the same all through the Championship and pretty much the same all through the League. Establishing Ger Cafferkey at fullback has been one of the first things James Horan did, and he built out from there. On Sunday, instead of the certainty that he was blessed with during the summer, James Horan had to run the changes at the back and hope to God everyone could hold on.

And that’s what they did. People talk about modern football being about the squad rather than the team and that was proven again on Sunday as Chris Barrett and Richie Feeney stood up to be counted after waiting patiently on the bench during the summer, which can’t have been easy for either of them.

There has been talk about an increased level of cynicism in Mayo football, which isn’t entirely accurate. Mayo are playing modern football, and certain tactics are part of that. Darragh Ó Sé gave a master class in this a few weeks ago in the Irish Times. Maybe Horan is a fan – An Spailpín Fánach is, and hangs on every word Darragh writes.

What is refreshing is that this is accepted by a Mayo public which normally insists that Mayo teams have to play “in the Mayo way.” When – or if – Eugene McGee’s comma-tee change the rules to make this sort of thing an offence, Mayo will change too. But until such times, we dance with the girls in the hall.

Besides. Mayo 2012 still have that recognisable swagger that has traditionally distinguished the Mayo footballer. For this particular trait, look no further than corner forward Mickey Conroy, who is surely having the season of his life. First, Davitts’ great run to the All-Ireland final and now his triumphant return to the county team. Conroy has the full bag of tricks and it was a treat to see him work his magic yesterday.

Sunday worked out perfectly for James Horan. The Dublin comeback gives him plenty to work on in training, and the performance off the bench proves that there is real competition for places. All of that is good, but what is even better is the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is that ever since Mayo returned to the top table in the mid-1990s, the county has tortured itself over what an All-Ireland winning team might look like. The consensus was that that you need Fionn Mac Cumhaill in midfield, Cúchulainn on the forty and Manannán Mac Lir bossing the square. A team of heroes, in other words, who know neither flaw nor weakness. Anything even slightly short of that shot you down to the level of the Warwickshire Junior B level.

Sunday’s semi-final suggests that in searching for perfection over the years Mayo have overlooked excellence. In other years, the loss of Andy Moran would have broken Mayo’s hearts. This year, Mayo know that while they’re still in the Championship, they’re still possible All-Ireland winners. As they lost man after man on Sunday, the next man stood up to be counted as he came off the bench.

It would be wrong to categorize the Dublin comeback as a choke-job. Dublin came back because you don’t get to be All-Ireland Champions without being able to play like that, but also because the Mayo defense was being held together with spit and string by that stage. But hold together they did, and that’s the point. Mayo have learned that sometimes you don’t have to perfect. Sometimes, mere excellence can get it done. Roll on Donegal.

The Donegal Football Revolution

Gaelic football is a Heraclitean fire – it is always changing, while always staying the same.

The first big change was in the 1960s, when Down brought coaching and planning to a level never seen before in the game. They knew they hadn’t a midfield to compete with Kerry’s imperious Mick O’Connell, so Down decided to let O’Connell field to his heart’s content, but to tackle him when he landed. That, and changing football from a static game to a running one, totally changed the nature of the football played in the fifty years that followed.

In the 1970s came the Olympic Handball era and the superior fitness of Kerry and Dublin. The ‘eighties saw a return to a more traditional football, with the robust rivalries of Meath and Cork. The ‘nineties saw the return of Down, arrivistes who had become aristocrats as their once revolutionary game had now become the court standard. Galway took a hint of classicism into and across the millennium, until Ulster heralded another revolution.

The Tyrone blanket may have looked shocking in the 2003 semi-final against Kerry but everybody is playing that game now. Until last Sunday, when Donegal broke its metaphorical sound barrier. Cork and Donegal were playing the same game in the first half but in the second half all that changed, as Cork hit the wall while Donegal hit the gas.

It was extraordinary to watch. Two Donegal forwards would loiter with intent in the Cork half of the pitch, at full and centre-forward. The rest of the Donegal team would gather back in their own half – all thirteen of them. Cork had a man on each of the two Donegal forwards, and then a line of five or so defenders stretched laterally across the field, between the 21 and 45 metre lines. Waiting.

Then the Donegal attacks would come, a ball carrier roaring from the deep come hot from Hell, as Shakespeare might have put it, and with outriders in his wake.

Once the runner hit the thin red line, things started to happen. Either Cork would win it, or the ball carrier would lay it off to one of his outriders, or he would break through. It was when the ball carrier got through that was particularly noticeable, because the substantial Donegal support would let loose a throaty roar.

Once the ball carrier was in space he was assured of a score. Why not? He had no marker – he had breached the Cork defence, and scoring a point into the Hill was like popping one over in his back garden. The Cork backs had been left behind.

Cork had no answer to Donegal. Cork arrived in Croke Park as the biggest, toughest and fittest team in Ireland. The theory was that Cork would match Donegal for fitness and then run the bench in the final quarter, crushing Donegal that way. Didn’t happen. Jim McGuinness has tuned Donegal to a level that’s never been seen before.

So what fuels this burning desire? It’s not just fitness. There is a deep and howling need in the people of Donegal to win the All-Ireland. We all think our own people are the best supporters, irrespective of where we’re from, because we’re all formed by where we’re from but reader, take An Spailpín’s word for it. There is nothing like the Donegal support in current Gaelic football.

Much has been made of the Donegal regime and sports science is clearly revolutionising football at every level, but it’s hard not to believe that identity and questions of belonging fuel that extraordinary fire. It hurts to play for Donegal – there was a man walking off the field on Sunday whom An Spailpín would have put straight into an oxygen tent. It’s not money that makes a man do that. It’s something else.

Donegal has suffered a lot from partition as its natural hinterland, Derry, has been cut off from the border. Donegal is part of the south but it’s of Ulster. It exists between the two states – cut off from the partitioned state to which it naturally belongs, but hugely isolated from the southern state, that has never even run a train up to those famous hills and glens.

Identity is important for every county, but in Donegal, it’s important with bells on because of Donegal’s geographical and cultural isolation. The curent Donegal machine is fuelled by all those things that money can’t buy, like heritage, pride of place, mórtas cine.

Whether the current Donegal revolution is a moment in time, a rhyme of hope and history, or an evolutionary leap like Down in the 60s or Tyrone at the start of this century is something we’ll have to wait and see. And all of yesterday’s glory will instantly pale if they don’t seal the deal in four weeks. Dublin and Mayo will have their own thoughts on that. They like where they’re from too.

Andy Moran Still Has a Part to Play

A great novelist once wrote that “all peasants know the crop must fail.” There’s a world of understanding in that short sentence.

If you’re an aristocrat, you don’t rely on the crop to the same extent. If it fails, you can always rack up the rent. But if you’re a peasant, the crop is all you’ve got and, at the back of your mind, you know that one morning you could go out there and your entire future could be destroyed. Too much sun, or too little, or too much rain, or too little, or one of a hundred other things can wipe you out. There are too many disasters out there for you to be able to avoid them all.

Mayo is a peasant county, with that peasant psyche. More so than most, in fact. At the back of the Mayo psyche there is a solemn drone behind the tune of life, that the crop will eventually fail and we will starve. That drone is loudly drowning out the melody now, as reality of Andy Moran’s absence from the senior football team hits home.

That the crop has failed once more, as we expected. Doom could only ever be postponed, rather than avoided, and now Doom is here, reaping his terrible harvest.

But this is just football. We’re getting carried away.

A friend of the blog likes to refer to Andy Moran as “Ever-Present-Andy.” In James Horan’s first league campaign as Mayo manager Horan changed at least six players a week. The one man he didn’t change was Andy. Andy was vital to Horan. Andy was going nowhere if Horan had anything to do with it.

But Horan can’t always have something to do with it. There are some things you can’t fight, and sheer bad luck is one of them. A man is handed the black spot, and that’s all there is to it. He’s not the first, and he won’t be the last.

But in their mourning for Andy, Mayo are in danger of losing a season that is still very much ripe with possibility. A consensus is quickly building up that, while Mayo had a chance against Dublin, now Andy Moran is gone there is no chance at all.

Once his knee went, Andy Moran became Mayo’s Eoghan Roe O’Neill, our Patrick Sarsfield, our Gile Mear. The great lost leader. But that’s not who he was going into the game.

Andy Moran is a vital part of the Mayo team, sure. But did anyone think of the team as Andy Moran and fourteen other bucks before he hurt his knee? Was Andy Moran Mayo’s Declan Browne, or Mickey Kearins, or Paddy Bradley, or a host of other fellas who were asked to carry their teams on their own?

No, he wasn’t. Andy Moran’s loss is huge. But to say it’s an extinction-level event is not true. Andy Moran isn’t irreplaceable, and the sooner that penny drops and the sooner the players concentrate on whatever it is they’re going to do to get past Dublin the better. New Zealand lost Dan Carter in the Rugby World Cup. They still struggled through somehow.

Andy Moran will still have a role to play, and if Mayo do get past Dublin then his role will be even bigger. It’s a bitter pill for the man himself, who is a gentleman by all accounts, but he can still do his bit for Mayo.

Even though it will break his heart to do it from the sideline or the dressing room rather than amidst the shot and shell, there is still a role for him in the context of the squad and the dream. Andy Moran has manned up for Mayo in the past. Now it’s time for Mayo to man up for Andy.

FOCAL SCOIR: The novelist? Lee Child, of course. 

Mayo Among the Contenders Again

The criticism of the football in the Connacht Final has set your regular correspondent wondering when the last good Connacht Final actually was. 1989 was the first date that flashed into my head, but there have been some pretty good ones over the years when you think back. The Broken Crossbar Final in 1992. The ending of the Tuam Hoodoo in 1997. Tuam 1999. 2001 in the Hyde. Salthill 2003. Castlebar 2010.

Those were all great days. Last Sunday in the Hyde didn’t measure up, for a variety of reasons. That said, Eugene McGee was let down by his subeditors a little in yesterday’s Irish Independent – the headline referred to “Dismal Efforts in the Connacht Final,” but Eugene’s own analysis was much more measured.

As has been remarked by some commenters on the excellent Mayo GAA Blog, while the Connacht Final was a poor game of football, it was a tremendous game to win from a Mayo perspective. Mayo’s heart has been questioned down the years, but that’s a little too superficial a generalization. There was any god’s amount of dog in John Maughan’s teams over his two reigns, whatever else might have been lacking. And Horan is very much Son of Maughan in that doggy sense.

It was ironic hearing Maughan speak on the discipline issue that occurred in the lead-up up the game – Maughan never had the name of a Conciliator himself, being very much of the My Way/Highway school. But it’s again a superficial analysis to say that a missing player had an effect on the Mayo performance, to suggest a player’s absence haunted the Hyde like Banquo's ghost in The Scottish Play.

The problems in the forwards have been clear since the start of the League, as Horan hunted for a combination that would click. He didn’t find it, and he’s still looking. This is normally the time for the Mayo support to rend garments and commence wailing, but Horan has time on his side. The Mayo forwards have to click sometime. If it takes until the third Sunday in September for Horan to unlock the combination, so be it.

If Mayo continue to struggle for scores they will not win the All-Ireland. Even in this hateful defensive era, the ability to score is still what separates the wheat and the chaff. But if Mayo can solve that conundrum, if they can find the balance between tactics, personnel and application they will be a force in the land.

Midfield is more a spaghetti junction in the modern game than the quiet country crossroads it was in the days gone by, but there isn’t a mouth in Mayo that doesn’t water at the prospect of Barry Moran and Aidan O’Shea i lár na páirce. When O’Shea came on as a sub against Galway, a friend of the blog turned to me and said “he’s like a prize bull in a paddock, isn’t he?” When O’Shea then went and caught the first ball near him, it was all An Spailpín could do to not bellow “Mooooo!” at the top of my lungs.

There are two rounds left in the qualifiers, and then the quarter-finals. Mayo will appear the weakest of the four provincial Champions, but they will be the team nobody wants to play. Win, and you beat nothing. Lose, and you're out.

Mayo, bizarrely, now find themselves in the ideal position in any race, just off the shoulder of the pace-setter. If Mayo can hit the gas as the bend rounds into the straight, they win. If the gas isn’t there, so be it. You can't ask for more.

As for which team Mayo will draw in the quarters, An Spailpín has already been in touch with a certain whiskered party. Please Santa, let it be Kildare. I’ll be good on account for the rest of the year. Let it be Kildare.

You'll Never Beat the Royals

Wouldn’t it be perfect if the Meath revival turns out to have been inspired by the handshake between Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain? It would be the grace note on an excellent GAA weekend if the boys of Nobber turn out to have gotten the hump over the fawning coverage given to a foreign monarch and decided to remind the nation that Ireland has her Royals too.

In terms of physiognomy, the royals of Meath prefer the bucket jaw to the chinless wonder that is so distinctive of the British upper classes, but other than that the blue bloods are quite similar. The belief that they are born to rule sees both entities survive into a 21^st Century where, really, they should have been put out to pasture many years ago.

Modern GAA thinking tells us that Meath never should have been let near Kildare yesterday in the first place. Kildare were promoted to Division 1 this year, while Meath sank to Division 3. Kildare thumped Offaly last time out, while Meath were taken to a replay by Carlow. The modern form book tells us this is the very definition of a mismatch, and nobody will gain anything when Kildare inevitably murder helpless, hapless Meath.

Meath, bless them, couldn’t give a chew of tobacco for the form book. Meath only know one way to play. Meath catch it and they kick it. When Meath’s players are good enough they win, and when they’re not they lose. There is nothing esoteric about Meath. They are or they ain’t.

Of course, Kildare played their part in the Meath victory. Kildare did not deliver on the day, and the reason why is something that will concern the great GAA people of Kildare greatly in the two weeks they have left to put their season back on track. There was certainly a marked difference between Meath’s potency in front of goal and Kildare’s.

It is one of the great coincidences of modern times that Seánie Johnson should be overcome with a desire to play for Kildare at the exact moment when a player like Johnson is precisely what could make the difference for Kildare’s hopes of a first All-Ireland since 1928. Johnson gets a lot of grief for a private citizen, and it’s hard not to wonder if he’s a pawn in a bigger game. Whoever the behind-the-scenes grandmaster is should have a long, hard look at himself.

But that, of course, is a debate for another day. Yesterday was Meath’s day. Dublin will be favourites against them in the final of course, and will probably win it. But yesterday was one of those days when the stars aligned and Meath enjoyed one of their great days of the post-Boylan era.

Meath have shown intermittent signs of life before. They shocked Mayo in 2009 but couldn't keep her lit against Kerry, who extracted revenge for 2001 in the semi-final. Meath’s luster dulled further the following year when they were too chicken to offer Louth a replay after the controversial end to the Leinster Final. There are the ongoing Borgia-style politics that go on in their managerial appointments. These are all issues that have to be dealt with and it would be naïve to ignore them.

But for the seventy minutes in Croke Park, Meath shook off their recent humiliations and restored the ermine, if only for a while. Their inside men were outstanding, their midfield dominant and their defenders brave as Lyons.

Dara Ó Cinnéide wrote some years ago that Meath is a petri dish for the GAA in the 21^st Century. The country is changing from rural to urban. The rate of change is different in different counties, but the change itself is as inevitable as income tax.  Meath is significant because it’s in Meath that the rate of change is fastest, and where the recent winning tradition is strongest. On yesterday’s evidence, there’s hope for the GAA to survive and thrive in the transition. It’s great to see.

The So-Called Weaker Counties

“It’s hard to know what either county got out of this,” reflected Colm Parkinson on Newstalk after Mayo wiped out Leitrim in the Connacht semi-final on Sunday. Parkinson went on to remark that the current competitive structure is unfair, and that there ought to be a competition for the so-called weaker counties to play in while the top brass went on to contest the All-Ireland series.

There are odds of a gobstopper against a ticket to Australia on Martin Breheny doing a why-oh-why on this very topic in Wednesday’s Indo. After all, all he has to do is change the names and the dates. It’s what you’d call your perennial.

There is once group of voices that are always silent in this, and it is that of the so-called weaker counties themselves. Part of this could be pride, of course; nobody wants to break ranks and say I’m hurting, please give me the salve of an Intermediate Competition. A Baby Sam.

Then again, it’s reasonable to think that if the so-called weaker wanted such a competition they would have organised one by now among themselves. It’s not like you have to play in the All-Ireland football Championship. Kilkenny don’t, and Clare withdrew from the Senior Football Championship for a year or two after the infamous Milltown Massacre of 1979.

So maybe – and this is only a guess now – maybe the so-called weaker counties are playing in the Senior Championship, even though the prospect of a day like Sunday is very real at all times, because they want to. Maybe they think pride in the jersey is bigger than winning or losing.

It’d certainly make for an interesting Connacht Final in a few weeks’ time if Parkinson’s suggestions were implemented, and the so-called weaker counties were saved from themselves. Sligo are currently in the Connacht Final but they’ve only ever won three Nestor Cups in their history, just one more than Leitrim. And Mayo is a hot four to one on to retain the Connacht title.

Better to protect Sligo, and the delicate sensibilities of the Commentariat, and have Sligo delicately shunted into some competition played out of harm’s way in Carlingford or somewhere. The 2012 Connacht Final could then simply be awarded to Mayo in a walkover, by right of noble birth, or Mayo’s fellow super-power Galway could be plucked from the qualifiers to play in the Connacht Final instead. That way, we could all pretend that Sligo didn’t upset any apple carts at all by forgetting their station and sending the aristocrats of Galway to the guillotine by the very own seaside on the 9^th of June.

Hard to see anyone from Sligo buying that two-bed apartment.

An assumption seems to have become widespread in recent years – and the RTÉ pundits have played a big part in spreading it – that the football Championship is falling to bits. Teams in Munster and Connacht don’t get enough games. Teams in Ulster and Leinster get too many. Teams in the qualifiers have an advantage over the provincial champions. The provincial champions have an advantage over the teams in the qualifiers. I don’t like it when it’s hot, I don’t like it when it’s not. Wah, wah, wah.

This childish level of analysis obscures the truth about the Championship and the true nature of the thing. It is this. The Championship is not a professional sports competition. If it were, there would be the Champions League style format and relegation/promotion and a transfer market and games on Sky and equality and maybe even cheerleaders and hot dogs.

The Championship is a cultural competition first and a sporting competition second. Yes, there is a Champion every September and yes, games are played but the true worth of the Championship is in its recognition of place and that all counties are held in equal esteem.

Whether the land is arable, pasture or slathered in concrete, whether they have hills or mountains or lakes, all counties have a day when they send their best to represent the people of that county.

The teams march behind the bands to say we are from this place; this place has helped to make us what we are, and we would not have it any other way. What happens after the band disperses and the ball is thrown in secondary to the expression pride of place, identity, history and culture that the Championship uniquely provides.

Declan Browne reflects the true heart of the GAA. Browne realised that his Tipperary birth was worth more to him than a cupboard of medals with somewhere that was not Tipp. For Browne, medals were temporary but the Premier was forever.

Players come and go, games are forgotten and heroes grow old but pride of place goes on and is passed on, through good times and bad, highs and lows, boom and bust. The people who realise that are the true All-Ireland Champions. Mo dhúchas, abú.