Christy O'Connor's football review: That wasn't a season. That was The Season
KEY CONTRIBUTORS: L-R: Mayo's Ryan O'Donoghue, Wicklow's Dean Healy, Monaghan's Jack McCarron and Mayo's Kobe McDonald. Pics: Sportsfile
The All-Ireland final. The list is endless from the greatest football championship in history that produced the highest volume of spellbinding matches ever played across one summer.
A handful of those games produced drama and intrigue that even Hitchcock couldn’t have dreamt up, but nothing could compare with the plot from last Sunday and how Mayo wrote possibly the greatest GAA story ever told.
Emotion always clouds judgement, especially in the moment, but the All-Ireland final was undoubtedly the greatest day ever in the new Croke Park, and one of the greatest GAA days in the association’s history.
Mayo finally getting their hands on the Sam Maguire was always going to be special beyond words and emotion as 75 long years of hope and hurt dissolved forever. A day that will echo for an eternity - even beyond Mayo.
Serious injury is always heartbreaking, even if it’s inevitable during a season. Luke Loughlin’s Grade 4 hamstring tear after Westmeath beat Meath denied the county’s best forward the chance to win a Leinster title. But Monaghan’s Bobby McCaul’s torn ACL, which he suffered against Mayo, was even more devastating after the talented young player had suffered the same injury just 14 months earlier when playing for the Monaghan U20s.
After making his senior championship debut against Cavan, McCaul showed his class throughout the summer – especially in the comeback against Derry – while he’d scored 1-1 against Mayo before tearing his ACL again. Devastating.
There were any amount of options, with Cork sacking Donegal in Ballybofey a shock of gargantuan proportions, but, again, last Sunday tops the list. Not only did nobody see it coming, it would have been even easier to think that the match was over after David Clifford’s goal after 15 minutes.
Outside of their own sorrowful history on football’s biggest day, Mayo’s incredible comeback was even more sensational again considering that shocks rarely happen in All-Ireland finals. And this was possibly the biggest shock ever.
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There were better goals than Darragh Beirne’s strike against Kerry last Sunday but none were as important, or as pivotal, in the process of turning opportunity into history. The goal was also emblematic of Mayo’s attitude, relentless hunting and gung-ho style. After David McBrien turned over a pass from Gavin White close to the Mayo goal, they hit the switch and took off.
Ryan O’Donoghue slalomed his way past Mark O’Shea, Seán O’Brien and Joe O’Connor in the middle of the field and through the central attacking channel before clipping the ball to David McBrien who flicked it on to Beirne. His finish was superbly composed for a young player but everything about the goal smacked off class and history.
With time up in normal time of the Derry-Monaghan Ulster semi-final, Jack McCarron had to try and convert a 2-point free from just outside the 20-metre line with five seconds on the clock. With hardly room to move back as he was so close advertising hoardings in the Athletic Grounds, McCarron just about had enough room to get off the kick. The weather was atrocious. Rain was pelting down.
It was, in the circumstances, probably a 1 in 10 chance at best for a left footed kicker to the left of the goal in that position. But McCarron exquisitely nailed it with the outside of his left boot to bring the match to extra-time. Monaghan won the game in even more dramatic circumstances when Rory Beggan nailed a two-point free from 48 metres with the last kick to win the game by one point for Monaghan.
It was incredible composure from Beggan but McCarron’s score was undoubtedly one of the greatest scores in the history of Gaelic football.
Jack Livingstone made a number of first class saves against Monaghan and Cork but his stop from Ethan Jordan against Tyrone was his best of the season, and of the championship. With the sides deadlocked at 0-10 each in the 43rd minute, Ethan Jordan got inside the Mayo defensive cover and pinged a ferocious drive low to the right corner from just 11 metres but Livingstone dived and pushed it out for a ’45 with a strong right hand.
Armagh’s 28-point destruction of Down in the Ulster semi-final was laid bare by their sheer weight of numbers. In scoring 3-33 (42 points), Armagh beat the Ulster SFC record of the most scores in a single game which they had set themselves only the previous week against Fermanagh when clocking 2-32.
The new rules have inflated scoring totals but this was still a total that not even a hurling team surpassed in the provincial and All-Ireland championship throughout the summer.
Wicklow. Their remarkable comeback in the Tailteann Cup final against Down was sensational - but it was also a trend. Wicklow played six games in competition and trailed at half-time in them all. And they won five.
They were behind to Antrim by nine before winning by one. In the semi-final against Offaly, Wicklow outscored their opponents by 1-17 to 1-4 in the second half. The final looked over at half time when Down – who had beaten Donegal in Ulster – led by 12 points before captain and man of the match Dean Healy led another stunning comeback as Wicklow outscored Down by 1-17 to 0-6 after the break.
On another year, Wicklow would have been the story of the season.
John Heslin. He wasn’t even on the Westmeath panel by the time they reached the Leinster final but injuries, Heslin’s devastating club form around that time, a revolving door policy from manager Mark McHugh, combined with Heslin’s experience and immense status in the county made it a no-brainer for McHugh to recall Westmeath’s highest ever scorer.
And it was certainly worth it. Introduced with 10 minutes remaining in normal time against Dublin, Heslin contributed three points, including a two-pointer in extra time, as Westmeath stormed to just a second provincial title in their history.
Donegal’s collapse in form. In mitigation, they were only narrowly beaten by Down and Cork, and by Dublin after extra-time, in a championship where shock results were more common than ever before. But losing to Cork and Down at home exposed the cracks that eventually saw the roof cave in.
After Jim McGuinness’ side hammered Kerry in the league final, that verve, pace, power and energy associated with McGuinness teams deserted Donegal. Whacking Kerry by 10 points in Killarney looked to have got the show back on the road but the wheels had already come off by then and they soon careered back into the ditch. Donegal played four championship matches – and lost three. Who saw that coming after the league final? Nobody.
Jim McGuinness escaped a 12-week suspension after referee Seán Hurson did not directly reference in his report McGuinness‘s shove on Kerry’s Diarmuid O’Connor during a half-time melee at the game in Killarney. By contrast, Dublin manager Ger Brennan was still serving a three-month ban following a clash with Galway’s S&C coach Cian Breathnach McGinn during a league fixture in March. After GAA President Jarlath Burns weighed in on the topic of disciplinary incidents, Brennan issued a “statement of clarification” through his solicitor in response to comments made by Burns.
Brennan said he had been personally affected by the controversy and felt "disenfranchised, undervalued and a lack of belonging to the association given the events of the past three months”. Burns subsequently rang Brennan. The Dublin manager was thankful of the call but the controversy still hung over much of the summer.
Ryan O’Donoghue. In any other year, David Clifford would have won the award hands down, even with Kerry losing last Sunday. Clifford has actually won the POTY award in other seasons when he wasn’t as devastating as he was this year. However, O’Donoghue was excellent all season but he really rose his game to another level once Mayo got to Croke Park.
Led from the front and set the tone with his incessant tackling but O’Donoghue also delivered the big moments in the big matches, especially in the All-Ireland final when his outstanding display was the emblem of Mayo’s heroic performance. As well as his two superb two-pointers last Sunday, O’Donoghue engineered Darragh Beirne’s goal.
It feels that it should be Kobe McDonald but Darragh Beirne’s scoring contributions, and his leadership in the big moments in Croke Park, were so exceptional that it’s hard to look past him for this award. McDonald’s X-factor genius lit up the championship but it also concealed just how much X-factor qualities that Beirne possesses. As well as all the brilliant scores Beirne registered, including goals in the All-Ireland semi-final and final, he is the type of left-sided forward that Mayo have been craving for years.
“Kobe gets all the highlights but Darragh is just as good,” said Ryan O’Donoghue after the Cork match.
He’s right.
