Reaching for the stars

Croke Park was enveloped in something of a twilight zone yesterday.

On an eerie afternoon in Dublin, a paltry 11,342 supporters turned up to watch the Division 1 semi-finals.

To put that in context, the attendance ranked lower than the 12,821 that turned out in Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the Cork double-header involving Kerry last month.

It’s not as if we didn’t expect to see the stadium so vacant. Still, it was bizarre to watch such an array of talent show their wares in front of so few admirers.

As long as Dublin aren’t involved, the Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) will think twice about arranging these semi-finals in GAA HQ again. With the much more attractive Division 2 final meeting of Tyrone and Kildare playing a supporting role in two weeks at Croke Park, there should be a bigger crowd at the final.

The only thing positively consistent about the day was Cork reading the script and pushing themselves to within 70 minutes of a Division 1 three in a row.

Kerry, on the other hand, coughed up two comfortable leads before conceding the rarest of Croke Park defeats to Mayo.

Not since the 1996 All-Ireland semi-final had they fallen here to their much-maligned rivals. But in their first knockout game in Croke Park since losing last year’s final to Dublin, they contrived to once more undo all their good work in the dying minutes.

Seven months ago, they went ahead by four with six minutes left. Yesterday, they led by the same margin with the same amount of time to play.

And yet again it was a turnover which gifted the opposition a goal. Kieran Donaghy’s wayward defensive kick forced Paul Galvin into conceding a penalty which Pat Harte converted with aplomb.

“We felt we needed to close out the game [in normal time], we messed around a bit at the back,” rued Jack O’Connor. “Deja vu, I suppose, and they came back and equalised.”

A Colm Boyle goal in the second half of extra-time caught Kerry out once more and it was left to Richie Feeney to administer the killer blow.

O’Connor didn’t seem too perturbed by the defeat even if those of a piseóg persuasion won’t need reminding that all three of his All-Ireland crowns have been preceded by Division 1 titles in the same year.

But then he knew Kerry weren’t going to be firing on all cylinders with Darran O’Sullivan, Killian Young and Eoin Brosnan among half a dozen players struck with flu bugs and Declan O’Sullivan unavailable due to family commitments.

“You’d always like to close out games like that,” said O’Connor. “Look, we’re not trying to make excuses but we’d our fair share of fellas under the weather coming into the game.

“We’d five or six fellas with colds and flus and we didn’t think we’d be at full tilt and we had to take players off because they were struggling.”

Kerry’s failure to live up to their side of the bargain will have disappointed many who had contemplated a Division 1 final derby.

A Colm O’Neill-inspired Cork had no problem in seeing off Down for the fifth time in 19 months. Although Paul Kerrigan summed up the unusual scene that greeted them.

“It was a bit surreal. I was just saying it outside that when you can hear the ball being kicked, it’s a bit different.

“We’d be used to it down in Cork for some of our league games but you wouldn’t expect it when you come up to Croke Park.

“I think maybe there might have been something to be said for us going as a double-header with the Cork hurlers for their league semi-final in Thurles. You might have got a bigger crowd.”

As for Mayo, they wake up this morning in the sunnier climes of Portugal as they begin a week-long training camp. James Horan wasn’t going to attempt to kid himself and preach that in terms of their record against Kerry there was any primate off their back.

“No monkeys or whatever don’t interest me that much. It is just doing the simple things and sticking to our game plan and that is what we did today.

“It didn’t matter whether it was Kerry or whoever we were playing here. That is what we were trying to do and today it worked.”

On a weird old April day, maybe he was right to rein in any ideas of a jinx being broken.