Enda McEvoy on calling the All Ireland final: 'I can't believe you didn't tip us...'
NANNY GOATS: Enda McEvoy gets the pre-final thoughts of Cork's Ger Fitzgerald at the now-traditional All-Ireland final press night ahead of the Rebels' decider against Kilkenny. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
THE story begins in the summer of 1996. It was warm and sunny, everyone appeared to be doing the Macarena and Limerick and Wexford were making their way by circuitous routes – the former after a punishing campaign in Munster which would tell on them in the end, the latter by winning their first Leinster title in 19 years – to Croke Park.
Your correspondent, newly installed as hurling correspondent of the Sunday Tribune, had opposed Wexford in the provincial final (“you’d have been mad to go for us,” Liam Griffin did have the decency to say afterwards) and again in the All Ireland semi-final.
Come the run-up to the final, however, I had glugged deeply on his Kool-Aid – remember the “Riverdance of sport” stuff? – and concluded that Wexford had the momentum whereas Limerick might have gone stale.
So I went for the Yellowbellies and seven days later, on foot of interviewing their captain Imelda Hobbins over the phone, correctly opted for Galway, who’d never won one before, to beat Cork in the camogie final.
The powers that be in the Tribune were suitably impressed. Who was this latter-day Nostradamus come among them? They told me how brilliant I was (they really did) and instantly gave me a pay rise (they really didn’t). In retrospect I should have quit there and then. Things could never get better. Nor did they.
On the eve of a 30th All Ireland final preview, what follows is the good, the bad and the extremely ugly of the past three decades. Please try not to laugh too loudly at some bits.
On the face of it the process couldn’t be simpler. You study the respective formlines. You ponder the potential match-ups. If you’re into that kind of thing you calculate the respective scoring rates. After agonising and prolonged mental labours you decide which team you think will win. That’s it.
But the decision must be made on its merits. This is not an exercise in trying to make a name for oneself. On no account should you opt for the outsiders on the basis that if they pull it off you’ll be regarded as a genius. That’s self-indulgence and, worse, an insult to the reader. Every championship in the Tribune days, admittedly, I allowed myself go for one surprise result. Only the one, though, and never in the final.
Now for something that may sound strange. you decide who you think will win the final can be almost as important as you decide.
About ten days before the 1998 decider, RTÉ brought a bunch of national GAA writers to the Montrose Hotel in Dublin for a slot on Up for the Match and asked us to shoot. Not yet having given the subject the slightest thought – it was much too early for that – I said the first thing that came into my head. “Kilkenny.”Â
Sometime in the bitter watches of the Wednesday night before the final I awoke in a cold sweat after experiencing a moment of semi-conscious clarity. Kilkenny had only beaten Offaly in the Leinster final by way of two close-range frees, which wouldn’t happen again. Offaly were now sucking serious diesel after the three-parter with Clare. It had to be the Faithful.
Grand, except the problem was I’d be going out to the nation on Saturday night calling it for Kilkenny, meaning I could scarcely appear in the Tribune next day calling it for Offaly. In retrospect I should have shown some backbone and done so anyway. I didn’t. I’m still annoyed.
(A lesson was learned, much good that it would do me. On the Monday morning – again, too early - before the National League final 15 years later I had to file an item for DBA, the programme publishers, with my prediction. Tipperary. By Thursday I’d veered towards Kilkenny and went for them on these pages.
The following week someone accused me of speaking out of both sides of my mouth. You can’t win.) Bottom line, the midweek before the final is time enough to be giving the subject serious thought. Granted, some years you can do a Dev on it after the semi-final, look into your heart and not need to give it another moment thereafter.
Such was the case in 2018 when I came out of Semple Stadium after the Galway/Clare replay convinced that Galway were losing altitude in a big way and were sitting ducks for a young, fresh and hungry Limerick – and it wasn’t that I visualised future greatness in the latter because I categorically didn’t. Nothing I saw or heard in the next couple of weeks gave me pause to reconsider. A trip to the Limerick press night, with its air of low-key confidence, provided reassurance.
So adamant was I about Galway’s vulnerability – how can a team harbour the same celestial fire the season after ending a 29-year wait? – that I very nearly said something in the closing pars of the preview to the effect that the challengers could win by seven or eight points if they got a run on their opponents at the optimum juncture. With Limerick eight up on 70 minutes I was cursing myself for my pusillanimity. With Joe Canning standing over that 79th minute free to level it I was congratulating myself.
“Your forecast in the Examiner on Saturday gave me great hope”, a Limerick fan tweeted me on the Monday. It was a lovely thing to say and I was glad I’d made him happy. But, again, ego shouldn’t come into it.
The obvious correct calls over the years are easily enumerated. Clare in 1997, even if it was rather too close for comfort at the death. It frequently was with Loughnane’s team, wherein lay part of their intrigue. Watching them strain manfully to overcome their attacking deficiencies was never less than compelling. Same with everything involving their manager.
Similarly straightforward were Kilkenny 2000, Tipp ’01 – they’d compiled an impressive body of work throughout the season which outweighed Galway’s semi-final ambush of the champions – and Kilkenny ’03; Cork ’05; the last three of Kilkenny’s four in a row; Kilkenny 2012, eventually (I was taken aback Galway performed so well in the drawn encounter but no way were they going three games unbeaten against these opponents in the space of three months); Tipp in 2016 and ’19; Galway ’17; and each leg of Limerick’s four in a row, even if they were all absolute gimmes. Stevie Wonder would have got them right too. Limerick “by up to nine points” in 2023 was a neat item of added value, mind you, even if I say so myself.
Naturally the wrong calls are much more interesting. Here’s one I’ve mentally re-litigated on and off over the years:Â
1999: Given the opportunity again I’d still go for Kilkenny. Where I fell down was in not affording due respect to the rigour of Cork’s defending and, above all, neglecting to ask myself a screamingly obvious question: what will happen to Kilkenny if they fail to hit the net? I neglected to do sufficient due diligence.
I’m more annoyed about last year when I allowed Cork’s brilliance against Limerick in the semi-final to blind me to Clare’s consistent – persistent - worthiness. Not unlike with Tipperary in 2001 I ought to have recognised the breadth of experience on the Banner’s CV, the tempering all the years on the road under Brian Lohan had supplied, their total and utter bouncebackability. I went for Cork by 2-26 to 3-21. Normal time finished 1-27 to 3-21. Aaaaargh!
Believe me, I’d have been on to the editor – not the sports editor, the other guy – five minutes afterwards demanding he hold the front page and splash me all over it, somewhere above a tiny photo of Tony Kelly lifting the cup. Give me the remainder of eternity to forecast the correct score in an All Ireland final and I’ll never get closer.
Perhaps as a consequence of being too close to the case, affairs involving Kilkenny have too often been a blind spot. Tipping Clare to beat them in 2002 I still cannot explain. What the hell was I thinking? I got Cork/Kilkenny wrong in 2004 and ’06 as well as in 1999, got Kilkenny/Tipperary wrong in 2010 and ’11 and went for Kilkenny first time around in 2014 but Tipp in the replay.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tip us,” Brian Cody said to me in tones of feigned pained astonishment a few nights after the 2006 decider. “Ah but what about all the times I went for ye and ye lost, Brian,” was  my reply.
The crème de la crème? In order: 2009, a mash-up between an Olympic archery final and a tank battle, a contest that had everything, including remorseless, relentless physicality and cold-eyed accuracy to an astonishing degree; the 2014 draw, even if the scores came a little too easily for those who prefer their steak medium rare; and the 2013 replay, marvellous, bubbly goal-drenched fun under Saturday night lights.
Lastly, one personal regret. Never getting to confidently call Waterford winning a final - and being right. What a shame.
