“One of the sweetest we’ve ever won”

Nabokov tells us there is no science without fancy, nor art without facts. Can we apply that to yesterday in Croke Park?

Of course. Kilkenny’s All-Ireland victory might have been based in facts hard enough to warm the heart of Mr Gradgrind himself, but it was also powered by imagination. They shot fourteen points in the second half - from eight different scorers. Angles, initiative and technique all combined correctly.

Galway, by contrast, gave the romantics a cause but couldn’t offer a foundation strong enough to sustain a win. A quick perusal of the facts shows four points for the westerners in the regulation 35 minutes of the second half, which has never been enough to build a victory. The 82,000-plus people in packed Croke Park came for the exceptional and left with the traditional.