Conor Neville: Donegal selectors willing to run that extra mile

The 1983 All-Ireland football final is famous for many things. The glut of sending-offs, the appalling weather, the ultimate success of the 12 apostles/dirty dozen.

Mon, 03 Aug, 2015 - 01:00

Conor Neville

And then there was the matter of Barney Rock’s freakish 11th-minute goal.

Back in ‘83, a controversy raged over the issue of management ‘encroaching onto the field of play’.

As Galway goalkeeper Pádraig Coyne launched his kick-out into the gale-force wind, Kevin Heffernan scampered onto the pitch to attend to the latest player to hit the deck — who happened to be Joe McNally.

Galway wing-back Seamus McHugh recalled that Coyne chose that moment to get ‘involved with Heffo verbally’.

We’re not sure of the contents of this exchange though it presumably was brief. It wasn’t so brief that it didn’t detain Coyne for that crucial split-second.

Rock’s shot, egged on by the wind, won the race to the net.

In the confusion following the goal, Galway launched a fusillade of complaints over Heffo’s role in the goal, but the referee was deaf to their remonstrations.

The issue of selectors buzzing in an out of the field of play has gone away in recent years. The GAA appear to have decided that the war against this particular phenomenon wasn’t worth the hassle.

During the weekend’s most competitive match, Donegal’s selectors gave possibly the most energetic performance of the weekend.

No break in play went unaccompanied by a raid on the pitch, as he relayed the latest message from the line.

There can scarcely have been a Donegal player on the pitch who didn’t receive numerous return visits. He even ghosted onto pitch during play from time to time...

It became quite the talking point in sections of the lower Hogan Stand, not far from the selectors’ base camp.

He may well be the only selector in the land who’ll have to be fitted with a GPS monitor.

How sadists enjoy watching matches

With the exception of Donegal, the big four have helped to create a summer rich in televised mismatches and embarrassing turkey shoots.

Spectators have often sat down in the vain hope of a reasonable contest, only to give up halfway through and, if they’re like this column, decide that they want the superior team to rack up as many goals as possible.

You know, for the record books and, if not that, for the comic value, at least.

Of course, Kerry produced probably the most spectacular hammering of all yesterday. The second half was a particular delight for sadists.

In the first 16 minutes of the second half, a period in which their gleeful forwards decided that tapping over points was only for lads who are zero-craic, Kerry amassed a novel tally of 6-1.

In the second half as a whole, they hit 7-6.

In the absence of an actual contest, such bizarre details are, along with the odd majestic flash of forward play, one of the few joys the spectator has left.

All we know is what we don’t know

All we can know is we know nothing. If GAAGO is accessible in heaven, old Socrates would be using the 2015 football championship to prove his point.

We’ve watched a few months of championship football and observed all the contenders but the chorus is adamant that we know nothing.

Apparently, nothing we’ve witnessed in the past few months has enlightened us one jot as to the big boys’ standing.

And before the Kerry game was even over yesterday, the chorus was on hand with a swift tug of the jersey for those who might be inclined to get carried away.

While Brolly rhapsodised about the beauty of Kerry play, those in rival counties were keen to stress the envelope pushing uselessness of the Kildare defence.

They haven’t been tested, they said. We don’t know how good Kerry are this year, they said.

It has been said about Dublin after every win in Leinster. It was said about Mayo after the Connacht final.

In truth, do we ever truly know how good any team is? Allowances can always be made for the poverty of the opposition. We may not know for sure until they meet the elite counties, but the evidence suggests that Kerry, last year’s All-Ireland champions who have weathered two tough battles and steamrolled a team who were there to be steamrolled, are still pretty good this year.

Either way, we can safely proclaim the sentence, ‘We don’t know how good (insert name of All-Ireland contender here) are yet’, as the cliche of the summer thus far.

Though, obviously, we can’t know whether it will still have this title by the end of the summer.

Where stand the vanquished?

While some might reasonably doubt the membership of Monaghan and Tyrone in this exalted club, the championship has now been whittled down to the ‘elite’.

What of those outside the club who lasted the longest? Who stands the best chance of making an incursion into the elite?

Fermanagh, with all their natural disadvantages, probably hit the summit of what’s possible in this year’s championship. A combination of the lopsided nature of the championship and an ambush of an unaccountably limp Roscommon meant Sligo were still playing football in August.

The battering Kildare shipped confirms they stand little chance of troubling the big boys any time soon. The most interesting of the four losers this weekend is Galway.

Early in the second half on Saturday, Adrian Varley, with the Galway contingent urging a Sheehy-esque lob over a retreating Paul Durcan, put the ball over the bar to give Galway the lead. Donegal hadn’t scored in half an hour. The westerners glimpsed the possibility of victory. It didn’t happen. Donegal exerted total dominance of the midfield sector in the third quarter and powered for home.

Still, Galway will draw many positives from 2015.

For the first time since 2008, things look promising in Galway football. The promise of that summer turned out to be a chimera, based as it was on a return to attacking football. Kevin Walsh’s cussed, well-organised outfit are a totally different proposition.