A game that lasts forever

AT the end of the hottest week for many a year in Ireland, it was the weekend of weekends in Dublin.

One-hundred-and-thirty-five thousand screaming fans thronged into the Phoenix Park for the Robbie Williams concert on Saturday, more tens of thousands were in Ballsbridge for the final two days of the Dublin Horseshow, but due respect to both those events, the epicentre of this seismic few days in the capital was in Croke Park yesterday afternoon.

This was the kind of game, this the kind of day, that lasts forever.

Just short of 60,000 journeyed from the South-West and South-East to this brand-new, decades-old, history-steeped ground. Some came perhaps in fear: Cork fans that their hotly-favoured side would come a cropper, Wexford’s nerves jangling at the possibility that in this massive pitch Cork’s flying youngsters would destroy some of their ageing stars.

All would have come in hope, however, hope that in a good game their team would do the business and would take the win.

In the event, neither got what they most wanted, but not one of those 60,000 went away unhappy. What they got was an epic, a hurling game for the ages.

Even Cork manager Donal O’Grady, normally a stoical kind of guy, got caught up a little in the euphoria that so enveloped Croke Park after this one ended. “A great spectacle from a spectator’s point of view, and the theme of the week is entertainment. Robbie Williams up the Phoenix Park, we’re here. Great for the fans and that’s what it’s all about. We didn’t get the result we wanted, but we do live to fight another day.”

Oh, and fight was such an operative word. Idle since June 29, their Munster final win over Waterford, Cork came cold into this contest, while Wexford were surfing a growing but quietly-cresting wave with two late-charging morale-boosting wins in recent weeks over Waterford and Antrim respectively. In a first half of clinical efficiency, Wexford kept that momentum going, went four points ahead of a Cork side that looked totally at odds with that which had won Munster, totally at odds with itself. Four minutes after the restart, it looked even worse for the Rebels as Wexford extended that lead by two. It should have buried Cork, instead it just burned them to life. They scored 2-6 in a spine-tingling 12-minute spell that seemed to mesmerise even the most heroic of the Wexford players, their defence especially. The game was transformed.

Just as worst-fears/best-dreams looked like being realised, this whole magnificent beast turned again. Prowling the sideline, ten minutes of normal time remaining, O’Grady was just beginning to relax. And then? And then “they came back with a goal so that it went from being a comfortable position to being in the melting-pot again.” Cork held a two-point lead, the most dangerous in hurling. In those last heady, nerve-jangling, pulse-racing, heart-stopping ten-minutes, that lead became one point, went back to two, reduced to one again, out to two, then finally, two minutes into an announced three-minute injury-time, with captain Alan Browne shooting a brilliant point from the right corner, the lead went to three, and Cork hearts soared.

That should have been it. That really should have been it, and most everyone would have enjoyed various shades of satisfaction. Glory Cork, onto an All-Ireland final, glory too to Wexford who almost defied the odds. But there was more magic to come.

A goal, a goal of quality, of character, of courage, a goal that defined the very soul of this Wexford team, was produced. Written off as serious All-Ireland contenders after a late collapse in the Leinster final against Kilkenny, they were given only grudging credit for those subsequent wins over Waterford and Antrim. It all left manager John Conran not a little peeved. “Of course I was, but they showed their true character out there today. That’s what this is all about, fellas digging deep, right down to the guts, that’s what this team has, you can’t write that off.”

The sad thing is, that they probably will be written off again for next week. “We hope so!”, said Conran, a statement with all sorts of in-built contradictions, even if the meaning is obvious. Every manager wants his team to be the underdog, but every team also wants respect. Coming into this game, Wexford were not getting that. Will they get it now?

Look at Galway and Donegal in the football championship. Galway were the team with all the class, the Connacht champions. Donegal? Sure weren’t they humiliated in Ulster, won only a few old low-calibre games. How that logic evaporated in the Castlebar sunshine last evening.

After their part in yesterday’s classic, what price Wexford now?

Respect, lads, respect for both Wexford and Cork.