Cork footballers remain the greatest anomaly in GAA

Croke Park was an eerie place on Saturday. I can’t recall too many occasions when it has felt that unusual and it beats me how the GAA came to the conclusion there were 28,000 people there.

The football offered up by Cork and Donegal wasn’t as strange, although I was quite surprised by how well Peadar Healy’s men did in the first half, and frankly astonished with the ease Donegal’s mass defence was broken down. That changed, though, in the second half and, in the end, it felt as if Cork left the game behind them.

But for Paddy McBrearty, Donegal would be out of the championship.