Sport rivalries not a numbers game
The counties had very close games in the 2009-11 All-Irelands, with Tipperary’s margin of eight points, in 2010, and Kilkenny’s five, in 2009, hardly doing justice to the closeness of those games. They again had a very competitive game, with a three-point margin, in the 2013 championship.
Likewise, Mr Fogarty’s ‘aggregate’ margin in Dublin-Kerry games is mischievous and relies heavily on the 2009 quarter-final, which increased the aggregate by 17 points, and the 1978 final, which does likewise. Games between these counties have huge significance for both sets of supporters, which informs a rivalry far more than a journalist with a calculator does.
Contrary to what Fogarty says, that one county has a run of success against the other probably enhances, rather than diminishes, a rivalry, especially in the case of Kilkenny-Tipp: both their National League games this year were one-point wins. For example, Tyrone’s run of three All-Ireland championship wins, in the noughties, over Kerry hardly negated the significance of their championship game in Killarney a couple of years ago. And Dublin’s 2011 and ’13 wins over Kerry were all the sweeter because they overturned a trend.
To downplay games like Kilkenny-Tipperary and Dublin-Kerry is to fail to appreciate the rivalries that are the lifeblood of the GAA, and it would be poorer without them. Rivalries are visceral and elemental and Mr Fogarty’s calculator does not captures this. Anyone who cannot enjoy rivalries must struggle to enjoy the sports at all. Let us enjoy the games for what they are, and save the knocking for something that deserves it.
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