THERE WAS NO doubt the better team won at Croke Park this afternoon but you’ve got to feel for Mayo. Year after year, they’re the bridesmaids and never the bride.
But after a farcical few days, football was the winner. Both teams went at it hard in-front of a full house at HQ. This is what the GAA is all about and not the sideshow that we’ve seen develop over the last week.
Managers will always talk about controlling the controllables, particularly in a big game such as the All-Ireland semi-final, but it appeared no one was in control or charge this week.
We talk about the GAA being only amateur in name but the way we conduct and govern the game at an organisational level remains most definetly amateur.
What happens on the pitch and in the build-up to games is almost certainly professional but the last few days have shown the amateur side of the game and it was just farcical.
For Diarmuid Connolly not to know until 3am on Saturday morning – the day of the game – whether he was going to be able to play or not is just scarcely believable.
However, the football did the talking and it went a long way to renewing our faith in the game after a ridiculous situation.
For the vast majority of the contest at Croke Park, it was nip and tuck. It was a fantastic game with a couple of brilliant goals and there was an intensity about it from start to finish.
All the talk last Sunday revolved around the off-the-ball incidents and the actions of certain individuals. The drawn game was helter skelter, frenetic and didn’t contain a lot of quality football.
This time around, it was a spectacle befitting of the occasion and for the neutral, it’s what you wanted to see.
To be fair, it was a lot cleaner than I, and many, expected. Given it was only six days between the games, there was an expectation that there would be very spicy and a bit of niggle about but there was none of that.
Perhaps the criticism, which was levelled mostly at Dublin, changed their attitude. Maybe Jim Gavin’s side were too worked up for the first game. They hadn’t received a real test of their credentials and they knew they needed to up their game.
We saw players not normally associated with such antics become embroiled in controversy but on this occasion they played hard but fair.
And ultimately Dublin had too much in their locker.
They got a bit of luck but that’s often needed on the big stage when the stakes are so high.
Yet you make your own luck. After falling behind early in the second-half, they responsed like very few other sides could.
Brian Fenton dragged his side across the goal and Bernard Brogan was there like the poacher he is to divert home. He doesn’t find himself in those positions by chance and he deserves huge credit.
Brogan is playing the football of his career and the rest of the Dubs are feeding off him.
Philly McMahon could have scored more than the one goal he did and when they moved through the gears, Mayo had no answer.
We’ve seen it all year – Dublin’s killer instinct. Once they scent a smell of blood, they’ll punish you like no other team and this year we’ve seen that ruthless streak against Longford and Kildare.
That 15 minute period in the second-half was undoubtedly the game’s decesive one. Mayo had tried to get a lot of ball to Aidan O’Shea and while he won a certain advantage, they found themselves losing possession too easily and in a tight game, you can’t afford to do that.
And once they had to chase the game, their race was run. They looked a bit jaded and when Dublin were in full flight, they looked to have an extra man on the pitch.
I just felt after Brogan’s goal that if Mayo had have kept possession, won their own ball and got the next score, they had a chance to settle but the ball kept coming back at them and the game was gone in the blink of an eye.
Mayo once again fell short but it was another courageous effort from them and unfortunaltely it just wasn’t their day. But it sets up a cracker of an All-Ireland final.
The traditionalists love to see a Dublin-Kerry showdown and let’s be honest, they’re the two best teams in the country. Today was pure football and a great spectacle. It was tough but had that intensity and pulsating nature you’d expect at this stage of the summer.
It all means there’s an intriguing game around the corner. Kerry will go in as slight favourites and the Kingdom would have learned a great deal from watching Dublin over the last two weekends.
But it’s so hard to call.
Dublin against Kerry is what the GAA is all about and after a week when the game was widely criticised for the way it handled the Diarmuid Connolly situation, it was a timely reminder of what really matters and why we love the game.
If your own county isn’t there, you want to see the two best teams go head-to-head on the biggest day of the calendar and that’s what we’ve got. Sunday 20 September can’t come quickly enough.
