Éamonn Fitzmaurice: Dessie Farrell and Dublin have good reason to be fretting
STAYING UP: Monaghan’s Conor McCarthy and Conor McManus celebrate their dramatic win over Dublin.
WOW. What a remarkable day of National Football League action. So many huge storylines but where to start? Dublin relegated, Cork survive, a post-match dust-up in Letterkenny, Limerick and Louth promoted, Kildare and Laois relegated and a Jack McCarron masterclass in Clones.
More about all of that anon but the GAA need to have a real think about how we maximise the incredible drama that the final day of the league produces year after year.
Obviously All-Ireland final day is the biggest day of the year but nearly all counties have some skin in the game on the last day of the league. We are missing a trick with the lack of exposure as the action unfolds.
In an ideal world, and with resourcing and technology allowing, the optimal way to cover it would be an NFL Redzone style show. For those unfamiliar with this outstanding television programme covering American Football's NFL, it works as follows: Hosted by the inimitable Scott Hanson the show whips around to all of the matches every Sunday showing the touchdowns and highlights live as they happen. Wall-to-wall coverage continues until all of the games are finished.
BT do something similar for their coverage of the Champions League during the group stages. While this might not be possible the GAA at least needs to adopt the model we have for next weekend's league finals for the Round 7 fixtures to broaden the coverage.
Next Saturday evening, the Division 4 and Division 3 finals will be played, followed by the Division 2 and Division 1 finals on Sunday. The participating counties will have supporters that will follow them to Croke Park but the rest of the GAA public get to tune in on television and appreciate the fare on offer. Using the same system on the last day of the league whereby all of the Division 4 games were played at 1700 on Saturday, Division 3 at 1900, Division 2 at 1400 on Sunday and with the Division 1 games finishing everything out at 1600. This would allow the television stations to show one live match from each of the four divisions over the weekend. They could also have reporters scattered around the other grounds to get updates as things changed there, a là Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1, who did a super job yesterday in keeping us up to date on all the twists and turns - but with visuals.
It seems a shame to be missing out.
Anyway, Dublin will have not have planned for this. Obviously, when they got back on track we all expected them to continue winning. Considering they held destiny in their own hands, they were confident of getting a result in Clones yesterday. I certainly was and I underestimated Monaghan’s ability to respond to last weekend's defeat to Kildare. I'm not sure if Jack McCarron saw Philly McMahon’s column on Saturday but if he did it certainly provided him with plenty of ammo. Remarkably for the second year in a row, he kicked a point from almost the exact same spot to keep his team up. He was wonderful, kicking some fantastic points, left and right. The highlight was his lobbed goal over Michael Shiel. Séamus McEnaney’s reaction afterwards showed what it meant to them. While it isn’t the end of the world for Dublin this year in terms of their championship ambitions, it does harm their 2023 aspirations. Additionally, some worrying trends that were visible earlier in the league were evident in Clones again yesterday, the concession of three goals chief among them.
In total Dublin have conceded 11 goals in the league, joint worst with Wicklow. They have also only scored two goals from play themselves. I think Dessie Farrell will be particularly worried about the form of some of his stalwarts. As we saw earlier in the league some of the young guns are not ready yet, and may never be, so Dessie needs his experienced players to get back to close to their best. Jonny Cooper was caught badly for two goals, where he lost his balance as he tried to defend Seán Jones for the first one and then Kieran Hughes’ pass to Gary Mohan for the penalty totally took him completely out of the game. He continues to be effective as a sweeper but whether he still has the one-on-one stuff in him remains to be seen.
James McCarthy’s day ended prematurely with a red card which is hardly what Dessie needed from his best player and captain. It was probably born out of frustration though as McCarthy had kicked away a few balls and looked off colour. They will rally for the championship but they are no longer the Big Blue Monster. To beat them a couple of years ago you had to be at your very best and you were relying on them being a small bit off. That is no longer the case.
Kerry’s unbeaten run came to an end in Killarney, they conceded their first League goal from play and they won’t like having lost to the All-Ireland champions for the third time in four games. They will still move forward to next weekend with confidence though. The league has alway been good to Jack O'Connor. In his previous reigns, each year the All-Ireland was won, it was preceded by a League final victory. He will look to continue that trend next weekend against Mayo. It should be a cracking game in Croke Park and both of those sides will be championship-ready after it.
Huge credit must go to Tyrone for coming down and getting the win to guarantee their safety, particularly bearing in mind what happened on their last visit to Killarney. They certainly weren’t going to go one on one at the back this time and they kicked some great scores. They showed the steel that is central to their identity but also the confidence that winning an All Ireland brings. Not training around the game this time probably helped as well!
Amazingly ending the league as they have, they are now once more in a good position. They survived by beating Kerry and Mayo in their last two games. Any excuses about being late back training or players leaving the panel are now redundant. They will go to ground and try to get themselves right for championship in three weeks against Fermanagh as they set out on the defence of their Ulster and All-Ireland crowns.
Speaking of the Ulster championship there won’t be an empty seat in Ballybofey for the Donegal and Armagh clash. There was a real edge to the game yesterday by the finish with some hard hits going in on both sides. This was highlighted by the melee at the end and should make for some battle in a mere four weeks.
Kildare can count themselves really unlucky to be going down. Their away form killed them, and has for some time. They have played a lot of good football during the league though and will be an item in championship. They will be planning a genuine attack on the Leinster Championship for the first time in a long time. Interestingly, their demotion means there is no team from Leinster in Division 1 next year.
Cork deserve great credit for the way they went and won the game at the end to guarantee safety. The Cian Kiely and Brian Hurley points at the end were brinkmanship at their best. They relied on their leaders throughout with Ian Maguire, John O'Rourke and Hurley showing the way. While they are safe in Division 2, I don’t think they will beat Kerry in the Munster semi-final. If this was 2023, they - along with newly promoted Limerick and Louth - might be hoping that no team from the Tailteann Cup make a provincial final. Should that happen next year they would drop back into the Tailteann Cup come championship.
Offaly will be gutted. They had the winning of the game in their hands but they didn’t manage the end game well, caught for a turnover and a back pass to the goalkeeper. They will learn from it but as both Westmeath and Laois found out this year it can be hard to get back out of Division 3. They have a lot of good young footballers though and they have Niall McNamee. If they get a run at the Tailteann Cup it will help further accelerate their development.
Traditionally teams hibernated after the league and emerged renewed into the white heat of championship, sometimes nearly three months later. The relevance of the league to the championship was zero for most. This year with the quick turnaround that all changes.
How much, we will have to wait and see.
