Rise above negativity and you’ll see semi-final positives
Looking at tweets reporting the attendance in Croke Park last weekend an observation of Mickey Harte’s from three years ago came to mind.
A little over 12,000 people had showed up for the 2012 league semi-finals, the first of which had been an absorbing clash in which an emerging Mayo team shaded Kerry by a point in extra-time thanks to a late Richie Feeney point. Almost every report referred to “just 12,000” being in attendance. Why the need for the “just” wondered Harte? Why such an emphasis, slant, negativity? The crowd wasn’t the main story: Mayo’s stirring comeback and win was.
Yet last weekend we had it again. Almost every report referred to “just” 20,013 at Croke Park.
It was seen as representative of the public’s apathy, that league semi-finals should be moved out of Croker or done away with altogether, even though the 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final double-bill had only 2,700 more patrons.
For the sake of a necessary debate, may we advance the unheard case for league semi-finals — and having them in Croker.
In 2010, a developing Dublin team under Pat Gilroy that had gone all out to win the league missed out on a final spot, even though they had won five of their seven games, just like eventual winners, Cork. They had a superior scoring record than Cork. Their problem was that they had lost the head-to-head game between the two counties in Páirc Uí Rinn.
In 2011, Kerry also won five of their seven games, the same as eventual winners Cork, and had a superior scoring difference. But they too lost out on the head-to-head.
Teams genuinely striving to win the league could be dis-incentivised going for it, frustrated that they had ended up on the wrong side of the lottery between who finished second and third.
Since then the semi-finals have returned. And not just that third-placed team qualify for them, but as John Fogarty from this paper has often pointed out and questioned, the fourth team too, sometimes having lost as many games as they’ve won.
We can see why he could view such a record as “mediocre”. But when you look at how the league has been historically run, finishing fourth out of 32 counties is hardly mediocre, and as worthy of making a play-off spot as one of the runners-up from the old Division 1A or 1B groupings of the noughties. (And they’re certainly as worthy of a run out in Croke Park before the championship than a team that finishes ninth or 10th, or 17th and 18th, or 25th and 26th as the Division Two, Three and Four finalists do).
One of the beneficiaries of the reintroduction of semi-finals was Mayo in 2012. I was involved in the backroom of that team and would go so far as to say that only for that league semi-final against Kerry being in Croke Park, Mayo would not have reached that year’s All-Ireland final, and quite possibly, the 2013 final too.
As a few of the players would remark to me after the 2012 All-Ireland quarter-final demolition of Down, they were now hugely familiar with Croke Park: its dressing rooms, warm-up area, the hotel base and logistics, and especially the pitch’s dimensions and, surface. Getting that league semi-final in Croker — and after winning it, getting another league game there — had significantly accelerated that familiarisation process.
The Monaghan and Cork footballers are at a similar juncture in their life cycle. For sure they’d played a few games there before, just as James Horan’s team had in 2011. Their chances of breaking through their current ceiling and winning an All- Ireland quarter-final has been considerably increased from playing in Croker last Sunday.
It isn’t appreciated or said enough: there are two kinds of Gaelic football matches — those played in Croke Park and those played elsewhere. It’s like a different surface, pace, even game, just as the French Open is played on clay and Wimbledon is on grass. Before playing Roland Garros, it helps to play on the clay of Madrid. Before you play championship in Croker, it helps to have played league there, especially when for a Cork the championship truly begins in August.
Of course there’s a case for playing league semi-finals elsewhere. The atmosphere isn’t what it would be in a provincial ground. There’s merit in having just the one semi-final: second playing third. There’s an argument for scrapping semi-finals altogether, freeing up a valuable weekend for club games in all counties.
As of now, the top six counties — last Sunday consolidated Cork’s and Monaghan’s membership of that group — are hugely familiar with Croker. Maybe they no longer need league semi-finals there.
But what about a Roscommon trying to break into the top bracket? What if they finish in next year’s top four? A fast-paced game in Croker against one of the big boys would be invaluable in their development.
My views on the league have been well documented in these pages. There was little wrong with the old Division 1A and 1B format that helped make the noughties being the most democratic era football has known. The current league format has as much shaped as reflected the gulf between the top four or six and the rest of the country. It may have led to a better league but a poorer championship, whereby you now get better games in March — and yes, April — than you largely do in May and June and large parts of July.
When the league is altered, and some day even scrapped, its semi-finals will not be mourned.
But before that happens, consider: have Derry had a better day this decade than last year’s win in Croker over Mayo? Dublin staged a better comeback under Jim Gavin than their blitzing of Cork the same day? Whenever the Stephen O’Neill Laochra Gael programme is made, pride of place will go to his couple of wonder points that clinched the 2013 league semi-final against Kildare. Last Sunday similarly added to the legends of Conor McManus, Michael Murphy and Colm O’Neill. Let’s remember the league semi-finals haven’t been all bad. They haven’t been bad at all.
