Honourable Antrim are deserving finalists
Once again pride of place goes to the men of Antrim who, by defeating Cavan, have now qualified for their first Ulster final in 39 years, a superb achievement by a Division 4 county.
I’m delighted for Antrim. I have always found them very honourable and supportive of the GAA in its totality. When the Tommy Murphy Cup was introduced, Antrim were one of the very few counties that gave it full recognition – they weren’t roaring about being treated as second class citizens and all that nonsense.
Nice to see them climb the ladder of success now.
I’m glad for Ulster too. Now it can be truly said that the Ulster football championship is probably the only championship at inter-county level where all participating counties have some realistic hopes of success.
Antrim won’t beat Tyrone in the final but a good performance and above all, a clean sporting competitive game will suffice.
As for the All-Ireland championship, it seems Cork, Tyrone and Kerry are well ahead of the rest.
People will be crowing about Dublin’s chances after their crushing of Westmeath, but in recent years we have seen all this hype far too often, only for it all to go up in smoke when the business end of the championship came around.
Dublin were brilliant on Sunday – everything went right for them. They shouldn’t be getting too carried away, through it’s likely many of their fans and some to the Dublin-based media will.
As has happened so often in recent years, this could be their undoing.
Galway were very lucky to overcome Division 4 league champions Sligo, who should have won the game.
Inexperience and lack of conviction cost them in the end.
It promises to be a good Connacht final but, unless Galway improve dramatically, they can forget about Sam this year.
One player I was glad to see perform well was Sean Armstrong. Ever since he scored 3-1 in the All-Ireland U21 final five years ago, I have waited for his arrival on the big stage. He was very good on Sunday but is he here to stay?
Regardless, we should get very good provincial finals in football and hurling and hopefully supporters will turn out in big numbers.
Full houses at these provincial finals would be a great boost to the GAA. Competitive, sporting finals would be a tonic for the fans.
