GAA’s greatest warriors falling foul to cruelty of the shoot-out

Drom and Inch players watch the penalty shoot-out in the Tipperary SHC quarter-final against Borris-Ileigh in Thurles. The shootout is a cruel and ill-fitting way to decide the outcome, says John Fogarty. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

There wouldn’t have been too many households in the country who didn’t turn on the heating last week. God bless your BER rating or your tolerance for the cold if you were not among the rest of us. August it may have been but this year is as unreliable as a politician is to give a full account of himself at the first time of asking.

It’s crazy to consider the clocks will go back on the first weekend of Championship this year. But on Sunday evening, after what supposed to All-Ireland SFC final afternoon, that familiar feeling of the nights closing in was there in Thurles.