Forget Bejing and the Olympics — did you catch the GAA fireworks this weekend?

TRY TELLING your average GAA fan that the Olympics was the top draw in sport this weekend. What was happening at the Big House on Jones Road had something for everyone and it takes Cyril Farrell all of, oh, not very long at all to drop in the usual reference to hurling being the greatest game in the world. Ever.

For the hurling snobs out there, there’s a bit of football to slog through first though, with Cork and Kildare very much the opening act.

Anthony Tohill isn’t too sure whether Cork actually want the dubious reward of another crack at Kerry; Dara Ó Cinnéide reckons Cork have bigger fish to fry than the Lilywhites or Munster titles.

Both can’t see anything other than a Rebel win pre-game. Poor Darragh Moloney’s back for the curtain-raiser after putting in a long old shift between the Olympics gig and the GAA over the weekend — next he’ll be thrown into Failte Towers and hosting The Panel — and trying to muster some enthusiasm for Cork/Kildare. Which is more than Kildare themselves can do early on, as Cork saunter around in their fancy skintight jerseys, John Hayes does his best Thierry Henry impression, Michael Cussen does Michael Jordan, and the “nightmare start” description given by Moloney seems rather understated.

The only thing for the boys to do at half-time is wonder why Cussen wasn’t left inside after doing damage and point out Kildare’s shortcomings in scoring with a highlights (?) clip of missed opportunities. As the game peters out, Martin Carney seems to sum things up perfectly by stating, “Cork were comfortable throughout after those early goals” until a late barrage from Kildare makes them, well, pretty uncomfortable for a time.

Overall, it’s fair to say yesterday’s football, apart from a breathless last minute, didn’t quite live up to the high jinks and drama of Saturday’s, what with the biblical storms adding a sense of weightiness to the rumbles of Kerry/Galway, the floodlights giving the game the look of an international soccer night rather than an All-Ireland quarter-final. There’s something cinematic about the lights and the swish of the nets behind the goal as the teams kicked score after score from the top drawer. Darragh Moloney (yes, yes, again) had a crystal ball moment when Joe Bergin came in, mentioning what a story it would be if he pulled something special out a full five minutes before the big Galway targetman flicked a goal — “What an impact,” Moloney roared as the net rippled — to really test Kerry.

And just as the commentator begins to mention the frustrating time Colm Cooper was having, the Gooch slips two points and three assists together in a quick blitz that blows Galway out of the water, prompting probably the most rhetorical question in GAA history from Kevin McStay: “Who else would you want on the ball but Gooch?” McStay put it down to “Kerry flowing with their quality, refusing to panic.” Moloney reckons, “This has been so impressive, you can never write Kerry off.”

ANYWAY, back to yesterday’s main event and the inevitable montage of clips from previous games to whet the appetite for a game “that defines a generation”. It’s fair to say the boys are excited as well, with Cyril Farrell talking through a series of clips to showcase Kilkenny’s workrate and Michael Duignan analysing one of the talking points all week, the alleged vulnerability of Diarmuid O’Sullivan. Kilkenny edged the predictions — Farrell saying, “This side will go down as one of the great Kilkenny teams of all time,” and Duignan reckoning that he’d “gone for Kilkenny all year so I’m sticking with them now”.

All of which comes to pass, though not before a tight, score-for-score opening 20 that Anthony Daly describes as “very tactical, there’s no space around the middle”, a damn accurate assessment of a game where players had about a millisecond to think in possession before being gobbled up. By half time, after Kilkenny’s storming spell of scores, Farrell is calling Eoin Larkin the most improved player in hurling, Duignan has the Kilkenny forwards ability to grab scores with so little possession as the difference and there’s a neat discussion on Brian Cody’s hurling obsession. “Cork forwards haven’t met this type of intensity from any defence yet,” Duignan argues.

By the end, the plaudits are gushing, Ger Canning, Duignan and Farrell all wondering whether this Kilkenny team is their best ever. “Cork will know they were beaten by the better team,” says Farrell. And yet the image of the day is Diarmuid O’Sullivan clutching the jersey, in tears as he walks off and the lads paying their respects to the warhorse.