THE SEASON COMES, the season goes. The sense of emptiness for counties kicks in and the regrets are acute.
Following the closing stages of Tyrone’s win over Mayo from the press box in Cavan, interrupting our own match reports and reaction being filed to deadline, you see Mayo as they are and as they might always be.
Leading against Tyrone, coming down the stretch. Ryan O’Donoghue put them a point up. Niall Morgan, who hadn’t had dead ball responsibilities up to then, came up then and pointed a ‘45’, awarded when goalkeeper Jack Livingstone knocked out a Peter Teague effort that was sailing wide.
Somehow, Mayo carve out the clearest chance of the game. With the Tyrone defence absent, Sam Callinan bears down on goal.
There is nobody to tackle him. There’s no opponent even close to shout at him. And he fists the ball over the bar, with team-mate Tommy Conroy also waiting at the back post.
Kick a goal, and the game is over. Unquestionably.
In the RTÉ co-commentary, Éamonn Fitzmaurice makes a statement that Callinan has kept Tyrone in it.
Morgan gets a kickout away. Michael McKernan attacks underneath the stand and draws a free from Aidan O’Shea. Somehow, Morgan steps up to kick a two-pointer. Tyrone are now leading.
Niall Morgan's late two-pointer is all that separated the two sides as Tyrone come out on top agsint Mayo.
Mayo have the final attack. It ends with O’Shea, from a standing position, attempting to swing it over but he has neither the glow of confidence nor forward momentum. It drops to Morgan.
And that’s it. The best teams have ruthless bandits who take your heart out with a goal when they have their chance.
When the final whistle goes, Marty Morrissey is leading the lamentations about Mayo and heartbreak and all the other predictable nonsense.
Malachy O'Rourke celebrates with Seanie O'Donnell. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
Mayo not winning in Omagh was no tragedy. It was just an inability to ruthlessly close out a game. But all the same, wow!
Down in Inniskeen, the somewhat unlikely venue for a huge GAA championship game, the exact same thing happens to Armagh.
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Of all the teams in the running for the All-Ireland, Armagh were the only team left without a scratch on them.
Winning their province with big wins over Fermanagh, Down and Monaghan, before comprehensively mastering Derry in the All-Ireland opener, they were the light-footed pretty boys in the ring. Nobody could lay a glove on them.
Now, they are weeping and seeping blood. Their nose has been opened and cartilage is exposed. It’s disgusting.
All that, before Sam Mulroy lands a long delivery towards the square and Ethan Rafferty has the sickening dread of feeling a ball slide through his hands on the way to the net.
The ball squirms from Ethan Rafferty's grasp. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
Louth win.
Horse Devlin out belly-bashing his players and running around children on the pitch.
Tyrone fans in Healy Park enjoying pre-match pints, roaring in delight at Armagh getting beaten. As it should be.
All of that comes a day after the absolute madness of Ballybofey and Cork upsetting Donegal.
Before last year, Jim McGuinness had never been beaten in championship football in Pairc MacCumhaill. When it happened against Tyrone in the round-robin, with two Seanie O’Donnell goals, it felt like a cat burglary.
When the hooter went that night, Peter Harte had the ball and almost drove it across the road to Finn Harps’ ground and yet, it didn’t quite feel real.
After creaming Kerry in this year’s league final, before going down to Killarney to crush the Kingdom, Donegal had slipped back into favourites for the All-Ireland.
They looked, to borrow an expression beloved of my young fella, ‘glazed’.
All that overlooks the fact that they fell to defeat by Down, Division 3 champions this year, in Letterkenny during the Ulster championship.
So now Donegal have lost their last three games at home in the championship. That is a remarkable statistic.
It also stands up the theory that in losing the All-Ireland final last year, McGuinness decided he would put Donegal through a little bit of hell with their pre-season.
They glided through the league and have since looked off-colour at times. The McGuinness’ stock phrase is to somehow distance team and management from non-performances by saying, ‘that’s not us’.
But it is. They look exhausted.
On Highland Radio commentary, Paddy McGill could barely believe it. Beside him, Martin McHugh was scorching in his analysis of how the Donegal substitutions simply did not work.
A steward in Ballybofey tackles a Cork fan. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
There is a democracy to the 2026 All-Ireland football championship that is delivering breathtaking drama week on week.
At a time when teams are measuring performance on the exact same variables of kickouts, turnovers, conversion rates and so on, how come the games themselves have never felt so… so… off the chain?
There we were on Sunday afternoon, digging our fingers in with Ger Brennan and asking him questions around the questions, worming our way to some deeper insight as to how he felt about things during his 12-week ban, when he dropped another big one on our laps.
Ger Brennan. Ryan Byrne / INPHO
Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO
Should Dublin get a home draw on this Monday morning, Brennan points out that the county hurlers will be in Thurles on Saturday night facing Clare.
Therefore, he would want the game at Parnell Park.
It makes sense. Dublin hurlers have shown what kind of venue Donnycarney can be with a full house. The Dublin support is loyal, but the hardcore were there for Breffni Park. Transplant the lot of them to Parnell Park and watch the scramble for tickets.
It might not catch on. There are too many vested interests and season ticket holders in Dublin alone. But it’s clear that for all that Croke Park was good to Dublin when Brennan was a player, he would prefer to keep the vibe more rough and ready.
Kipping at the gate house, rather than the Big House.
The format is still giving people a pain in the head, but this is the greatest football championship in many a year.
Jump on board. Get invested. This is the shit, man.
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Get on board with the maddest All-Ireland football championship... ever!
THE SEASON COMES, the season goes. The sense of emptiness for counties kicks in and the regrets are acute.
Following the closing stages of Tyrone’s win over Mayo from the press box in Cavan, interrupting our own match reports and reaction being filed to deadline, you see Mayo as they are and as they might always be.
Leading against Tyrone, coming down the stretch. Ryan O’Donoghue put them a point up. Niall Morgan, who hadn’t had dead ball responsibilities up to then, came up then and pointed a ‘45’, awarded when goalkeeper Jack Livingstone knocked out a Peter Teague effort that was sailing wide.
Somehow, Mayo carve out the clearest chance of the game. With the Tyrone defence absent, Sam Callinan bears down on goal.
There is nobody to tackle him. There’s no opponent even close to shout at him. And he fists the ball over the bar, with team-mate Tommy Conroy also waiting at the back post.
Kick a goal, and the game is over. Unquestionably.
In the RTÉ co-commentary, Éamonn Fitzmaurice makes a statement that Callinan has kept Tyrone in it.
Morgan gets a kickout away. Michael McKernan attacks underneath the stand and draws a free from Aidan O’Shea. Somehow, Morgan steps up to kick a two-pointer. Tyrone are now leading.
Mayo have the final attack. It ends with O’Shea, from a standing position, attempting to swing it over but he has neither the glow of confidence nor forward momentum. It drops to Morgan.
And that’s it. The best teams have ruthless bandits who take your heart out with a goal when they have their chance.
When the final whistle goes, Marty Morrissey is leading the lamentations about Mayo and heartbreak and all the other predictable nonsense.
Mayo not winning in Omagh was no tragedy. It was just an inability to ruthlessly close out a game. But all the same, wow!
Down in Inniskeen, the somewhat unlikely venue for a huge GAA championship game, the exact same thing happens to Armagh.
Of all the teams in the running for the All-Ireland, Armagh were the only team left without a scratch on them.
Winning their province with big wins over Fermanagh, Down and Monaghan, before comprehensively mastering Derry in the All-Ireland opener, they were the light-footed pretty boys in the ring. Nobody could lay a glove on them.
All that, before Sam Mulroy lands a long delivery towards the square and Ethan Rafferty has the sickening dread of feeling a ball slide through his hands on the way to the net.
Louth win.
Horse Devlin out belly-bashing his players and running around children on the pitch.
Tyrone fans in Healy Park enjoying pre-match pints, roaring in delight at Armagh getting beaten. As it should be.
All of that comes a day after the absolute madness of Ballybofey and Cork upsetting Donegal.
Before last year, Jim McGuinness had never been beaten in championship football in Pairc MacCumhaill. When it happened against Tyrone in the round-robin, with two Seanie O’Donnell goals, it felt like a cat burglary.
When the hooter went that night, Peter Harte had the ball and almost drove it across the road to Finn Harps’ ground and yet, it didn’t quite feel real.
After creaming Kerry in this year’s league final, before going down to Killarney to crush the Kingdom, Donegal had slipped back into favourites for the All-Ireland.
They looked, to borrow an expression beloved of my young fella, ‘glazed’.
All that overlooks the fact that they fell to defeat by Down, Division 3 champions this year, in Letterkenny during the Ulster championship.
So now Donegal have lost their last three games at home in the championship. That is a remarkable statistic.
It also stands up the theory that in losing the All-Ireland final last year, McGuinness decided he would put Donegal through a little bit of hell with their pre-season.
They glided through the league and have since looked off-colour at times. The McGuinness’ stock phrase is to somehow distance team and management from non-performances by saying, ‘that’s not us’.
But it is. They look exhausted.
On Highland Radio commentary, Paddy McGill could barely believe it. Beside him, Martin McHugh was scorching in his analysis of how the Donegal substitutions simply did not work.
There is a democracy to the 2026 All-Ireland football championship that is delivering breathtaking drama week on week.
At a time when teams are measuring performance on the exact same variables of kickouts, turnovers, conversion rates and so on, how come the games themselves have never felt so… so… off the chain?
There we were on Sunday afternoon, digging our fingers in with Ger Brennan and asking him questions around the questions, worming our way to some deeper insight as to how he felt about things during his 12-week ban, when he dropped another big one on our laps.
Should Dublin get a home draw on this Monday morning, Brennan points out that the county hurlers will be in Thurles on Saturday night facing Clare.
Therefore, he would want the game at Parnell Park.
It makes sense. Dublin hurlers have shown what kind of venue Donnycarney can be with a full house. The Dublin support is loyal, but the hardcore were there for Breffni Park. Transplant the lot of them to Parnell Park and watch the scramble for tickets.
It might not catch on. There are too many vested interests and season ticket holders in Dublin alone. But it’s clear that for all that Croke Park was good to Dublin when Brennan was a player, he would prefer to keep the vibe more rough and ready.
Kipping at the gate house, rather than the Big House.
The format is still giving people a pain in the head, but this is the greatest football championship in many a year.
Jump on board. Get invested. This is the shit, man.
*****
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GAA Gaelic Football mad ted madness Upsets Galore