WE LOOK BACK AT two of the more standout moments from the weekend’s championship action.
1. Western seaboard levelling up
Perhaps the Central Competitions Control Committee might consider nudging the provincial hurling championships, such as they are, into an earlier slot as a means of distracting from the annual bellyaching about the state of Gaelic football on a poor weekend.
Surely though, all anyone actually wants is a close game? Never mind the quality, just feel the tension. That kind of thing.
On a weekend when the Ulster championship massively delivered, Connacht followed up with two richly entertaining games in their own semi-finals.
For both winners, there is much to chew over.
As a measure of how much Irish sports fans will root for the underdog, you’d expect a press box on game day to be a fairly even-handed environment.
Yet, as the temperature was building in Celtic Park ahead of the Derry-Donegal game, reporters, presenters and commentators found themselves in a fizz of excitement as the minutes ticked down and they followed the progress at Markievicz Park.
While Sligo’s lead over Galway was being eaten into, there was genuine giddiness on show about the prospect of an upset.
That was, of course, before Damian Comer stole in to take advantage of a tired mistake, carry to the honey pot and set up the move that brought a Rob Finnerty goal.
The moment that happened led to deflation, all the way from Sligo to Celtic Park.
It put Galway into their ninth consecutive provincial final, where they will meet Mayo. The old firm. Same as it ever was.
The interesting thing is that Galway manager Pádraic Joyce has lost three out of his four meetings with Mayo. And Mayo have only won two provincial titles since 2015, when they completed a run of five consecutive titles as James Horan’s team established a supremacy in their own province.
Mayo’s difficulties when forced long on their own kickouts was pronounced. They won just 27% of such plays. While manager Kevin McStay said they felt they just got a little bit unlucky in that regard, cast your mind back to last year and the meeting of these two in Castlebar on Easter Sunday.
On a day when Roscommon shocked the league champions, Mayo gathered up only 25% of their own long kickouts.
One area for Galway to target, for sure.2.
2. Don’t call it a Tyrone comeback
When Tyrone reached the All-Ireland final of 2018, the deployment of Matthew Donnelly at centre-back was hugely influential.
Asked in their press event that year where he liked to play most, he said he would have an inkling towards centre-back, given his father played in the same jersey for so many years.
Strange, then, that he has spent so little of his career there, instead being shuffled through midfield, half-forwards and full-forward for most of it.
Against Cavan he was making his first start in nine months. At the Kilmacud Sevens club event last year, he suffered a broken tibia in line with his knee, and tore his posterior cruciate ligament.
In mid-November, The 42 went to visit him at his house, where he was wearing an ankle-to-hip leg brace.
“There’s an awful lot to it,” he said.
“Comfort-wise, after the first few nights in it, I was thinking, ‘there’s no way I will do twelve weeks in this.’
“For the first twelve weeks I had to sleep in it. 24/7. But you get acclimatised to it. There’s not that much discomfort to it. When you are trying to do stuff in the gym with it on it’s an inconvenience.”
That he should get from that point, to being awarded man-of-the-match in an Ulster championship match in sweltering heat that lasted 100 minutes, says all there is to know about his service to his county at the age of 34.
The great pity now is the circumstances around their next test in Ulster. It’s fair to say that after the past weekend, the provincial championships brand is not looking as tattered.
The semi-final against Donegal should be one of those games where the anticipation can breathe for a fortnight. You’d never know, the odd flag might even go up.
But instead, it is being run off this weekend coming. Tyrone will not even have had a full week off before the ball is thrown in at Celtic Park.
The point is constantly made that the split season produces clarity for the club players. But the month of April has brought a trip to Croke Park for the Division 2 league final, and now two days out to Celtic Park out of the one pay packet for Donegal supporters.
There are limits to which you can exploit fans.
And the same goes for veteran players having to make plans for back-to-back games of this nature.
