John Fogarty: Tyrone demonstrate that champions hold onto their best

Tyrone would not be All-Ireland champions had Conor McKenna and Cathal McShane remained in Australia

Conor McKenna, left, and Cathal McShane of Tyrone celebrate after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Mayo and Tyrone at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

HAMSTRING injuries meant Mark O’Connor and Zach Tuohy were not available to Geelong as they were hockeyed by 83 points in last Friday’s AFL preliminary semi-final.

It was an undignified end to the season for the Kerry and Laois men and their fellow Cats in what is the sport’s equivalent of an All-Ireland semi-final. Although, it has now emerged that six of their players lined out against Melbourne Demons with a virus, which had ripped through the squad and left many of them bedridden and suffering fever 48 hours before the game. 

“There are a few things that I won’t speak about tonight that will become clearer over the next few weeks, but suffice to say, I’m proud of the way our guys endured and we just completely ran out of steam,” said Cats’ coach Chris Scott.

At no stage did Geelong look for a postponement of the game. Neither did Ireland in 2017 when several of their players were laid low by a vomiting bug that hit the squad prior to their first test in Adelaide. As a result, Niall Murphy and Enda Smith couldn’t play and in spite of Michael Murphy and Conor McManus’s excellence, the visitors lost the game by 10 points.

The generosity of Kerry and the GAA to facilitate Tyrone’s predicament last month would be envied by Geelong who were beaten by Melbourne by 25 points in their round game in April but would surely have put up a better fight were they given another week.

There is a lot to envy about Tyrone right now particularly that they have a tight grip on two men, so key to Saturday’s All-Ireland final victory, who could otherwise be showcasing their talents in Australia. 

Cathal McShane honours the contract he signed with Hawthorn, Tyrone don’t get to the final never mind win it. Conor McKenna chooses to stay with Essendon and there is nobody with his foresight and presence of mind to flash that inch-perfect, no-look hand-pass to Darren McCurry for Tyrone’s second goal on Saturday.

Now consider if in the same game Pearce Hanley was Mayo’s centre-back lynchpin or working in tandem in midfield with Matthew Ruane. Losing him as they did to AFL in 2007, the county said goodbye to a winner.

Mayo mightn’t have been prepared to do what was required to keep him back then but they would seem better positioned now as Oisín Mullin weighs up the pros and cons of signing a contract with Geelong. Although he was slightly subdued at the weekend, it was understandable to see why last year’s footballer of the year is attracting such attention from the other side of the world. With his running power and awareness, he is very much in the mould of Tuohy, who has been such an Irish success story Down Under.

Had Mayo won, it might have been easier for Mullin to say farewell but if the team are to recover from this setback he has to be part of the group driving them on next season.

With O’Connor back, Kerry are a better team. Contracted with Geelong up to next season, it appears they will have to wait longer for him to make his senior debut. There have been many wistful thoughts about a David Moran-Mark O’Connor midfield axis. As Moran considers a 15th season in 2022 when he will turn 34, O’Connor’s absence is more keenly felt.

Neither Hanley or O’Connor can be faulted for pursuing aspirations of being professional sportsmen but the harsh truth is that champions rarely lose their best. Professor Niall Moyna has always credited Pat Gilroy for putting the seed in Ciarán Kilkenny’s head to return to Dublin. By starting Kilkenny in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final in front of 81,364 people, Moyna believed Gilroy gave the player the taste of what he would miss out on had he stuck with Hawthorn.

In a statement confirming his return, seven-time All-Ireland SFC winner and four-time All-Star Kilkenny declared in a statement that home was home. “As much as I enjoyed the lifestyle of a professional Aussie Rules player and relished the challenge of achieving in a different code, I realised that it would never matter as much to me as the sense of community and joy I get from togging out and playing alongside the people with whom I grew up and live.

“Achieving success and realising my potential as a hurler and footballer with my club and county will always be more important to me than any of the benefits to be obtained from professional sport.”

On Saturday night, McKenna and McShane made similar wholesome remarks and they too were genuine. But there was some pragmatism too — patrons of Tyrone GAA found jobs for their men to sweeten the pot. Whether it’s making offers players can’t refuse or simply being able to sell the dream of All-Ireland glory, winners get it done.

Cronin DRA case is a concern

Irrespective of whether Orla Cronin was rightly or wrongly sent off against Kilkenny, that the Disputes Resolution Authority (DRA) offered her an interim order staying the period of suspension to play in Sunday’s All-Ireland senior camogie final is slightly worrying.

Not that there was anything untoward about how Cork or Cronin made their application, but how many others will now look at achieving a similar outcome should there not be enough time to stage a full tribunal hearing?

Going back to Diarmuid Connolly’s case in 2015, two of the three-person tribunal ruled hours before the All-Ireland semi-final replay against Mayo that the Dublin forward had “not been afforded fair procedures by the GAA’s Central Competitions Control Committee”.

Favoured by a majority of two against one on the DRA panel, Hugh O’Flaherty and David Nohilly mentioned: “The Tribunal is also cognisant of the fact that the Claimant, in exercising his legal rights, has endured a late night hearing before the CHC on Wednesday night, a late night hearing before the CAC on Thursday night, a late night hearing before the DRA on Friday night all before an All-Ireland Semi Final replay match on Saturday afternoon. It would be unduly harsh and disproportionate to remit the matter back for further reprocessing in the circumstances.”

The DRA, although they have been slow to release full decisions on matters such as Rory Brennan’s red card against Donegal last October and Ronan McCarthy’s ban earlier this year, could not be blamed for tardiness on this occasion. Cronin only lost her case in front of the Camogie Association’s appeal committee on Friday night, 12 days after she was issued the red card.

If the governing authorities don’t provide prompter due process, there may be further trouble ahead.

Did McQuillan distract O'Donoghue?

As Brian Gavin wrote in these pages on Sunday, Joe McQuillan had a fine All-Ireland final on Saturday but there were a few unusual things about the penalty that he awarded to Mayo.

Gavin highlighted the point that Diarmuid O’Connor may have been in the small parallelogram before the ball arrived from Ryan O’Donoghue’s kick, which would have resulted in a free-kick to Tyrone.

Secondly, Niall Morgan moved off his line prior to the penalty being taken by O’Donoghue, which was not picked up by the referee or his umpire who had actually repositioned himself to have greater sight of the goalkeeper's stance.

But what seemed most peculiar was McQuillan walking towards the Mayo penalty taker as he was kicking the ball. Not for a second are we suggesting that it was intentional but it was bizarre to look back on the replays and notice how the referee after whistling for the kick to be taken walks back and then moves in O’Donoghue’s direction during his run-up to the ball.

Given O’Donoghue had just been the subject of a high challenge by Frank Burns less than two minutes before that penalty kick was taken, it must go down as one of the strangest passages of play in an All-Ireland final. 

Stranger than the own-goals of 2016, even.

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