Close encounters: Fine line between victory and defeat

When Kilkenny and Galway finished all square in their initial All-Ireland hurling final meeting four weeks ago, there were more than a few writers who leaned instinctively on that brilliant old quote about how a draw was like kissing your sister.

It’s a great line but there’s a better variation of it out there in the sporting annals and it is especially applicable to the men from the west this week. It was uttered a few decades ago by the Kansas City Royals’ third baseman, George Brett, whose exploits landed him in baseball’s Hall of Fame in 1999: “If a tie is like kissing your sister,” Brett reckoned, “losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out.”

Losing clearly sucks for a whole host of self-explanatory reasons and among them must be the knowledge that decisions and actions taken in good faith by the people best-placed to make them get second-guessed and ultimately holed by hindsight.