The cream of the crop and the storylines that defined a season
JOY AND DESPAIR: David Clifford, left, and Seán O'Shea of Kerry celebrate alongside a dejected Liam Silke of Galway at the final whistle of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final match between Kerry and Galway at Croke Park in Dublin. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
The quality, skill and intensity of the Dublin-Kerry All-Ireland semi-final was unlike anything seen up to that point of the championship but the Armagh-Galway All-Ireland quarter-final two weeks earlier provided a rich fusion of entertainment, enthrallment, controversy and drama unlike anything ever seen before in such a big championship match in Croke Park. The ugly brawl which ignited in a blaze at the end of normal time did detract from the overall feel-good atmosphere around the contest. There were stages in the game when the quality was poor, but all the pieces still came together in the end to create an incredible mosaic of emotion and excitement that had everyone in the ground – and at home – on the edge of their seats.
Galway looked like they had the game wrapped up until Armagh came with a late surge of goals and Rian O’Neill landed a monstrous free with the last kick to take the match to extra-time. Armagh looked headed for the semi-final in the dying minutes of that second period until Cillian McDaid landed a brilliant point to take the match to penalties. A kind of hush came over the ground as nobody knew what to expect. Galway slotted their first four to win the match. Cue pandemonium. And devastation. Even the weather got in on the act of such an oscillating and rollercoaster adventure – after the blazing sunshine and heat during normal time, the penalties were taken in a downpour.
- Christy O’Connor
Not long after Galway had defeated Armagh on penalties, Pádraic Joyce outlined his frustration at the outcome of the game being decided in that manner. “It’s no way to lose a match,” he said. “It’s something the GAA need to look at because we’re not soccer.” Before Derry’s semi-final with Galway, Derry manager Rory Gallagher weighed in on the subject “Absolutely ludicrous, farcical, unfair,” he said. “I don’t know who said about copying other sports, was it Pádraic? You know there are things that can be learned from other sports but it is not a skill that is overall throughout the team, definitely not.” Championship matches going to extra-time is already hard for the GAA public to get their head around but penalties is a completely different task again. One of the biggest challenges for players is adjusting to the culture change penalty shootouts create. The strange atmosphere in the ground when the shootout is taking place, as was also the case for the Clare-Limerick Munster quarter-final at the end of April, provided the clearest evidence of how tricky that adjustment is.
In a condensed season, the public wanted more football games, not less. There will be more championship matches next year under the new format, which will mean far less scope again for replays. For the moment at least, penalties look here to stay. But they remain a massive sticking point in the split season debate.
Matthew Tierney unselfishly sacrificed his attacking game in yesterday’s All-Ireland final to play an important role in Galway’s unrelenting protection of the D and superb scrambling defence.
But if we’re being honest, it was a robbing Peter to pay Paul tactical deployment as while Tierney efficiently manned the D throughout, he was missed on the opposing 45-metre line.
2022 as a whole, though, was yet another year where the 21-year-old Galway vice-captain belied his age in the leadership he showed.
Was a driving force as captain of NUIG’s first Sigerson Cup triumph in 19 years, his semi-final display straight off the highest shelf as he converted five frees and added three from play. Took a while to get going in the championship but came to life just when Galway needed him in the All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh. Kicked two points from play. Immediately put his hand up to take a penalty at the end of extra-time. His spot-kick was ultimately the one that decided it.
Will be central to this Galway team for years to come.
An honourable mention for Billy Lee who surely met all of his 2022 targets for Limerick by guiding the Shannonsiders to promotion from Division 3 and a Munster final. Colm Collins and Rory Gallagher had standout campaigns with Clare and Derry too. And not forgetting Christy Walsh's All-Ireland junior championship win with Kilkenny. But in relative terms, Michael Maher's achievement in guiding London to fifth place in Division 4, having not kicked a ball in anger in almost two years, was even more impressive. No team was impacted more by the pandemic than the Exiles who didn't feature in either the 2020 or 2021 Championship campaigns, missed the autumn portion of the 2020 league and all of the 2021 league.
It meant that Maher, the first London native to manage them, only presided over five competitive games in his first two seasons. Dessie Farrell, meanwhile, appointed to the Dublin job at the same time, got 20 games, David Power 16 with Tipperary and Seamus McEnaney 15 with Monaghan. Despite all of that, London actually beat Carlow in their first league game in 22 months, a 2-11 to 1-13 win away from home. Then they beat Waterford and then Leitrim and while the wins dried up there, they still pushed eventual Division 4 champions Cavan to within a point in Round 5.
-Paul Keane
Dublin steamrolling their way through the Leinster championship again. There were plenty of groans over winter when it became clear that the GAA was sticking with the provincial system long-term but Dublin's subsequent relegation from Division 1 at least hinted that a degree of competitiveness might finally have returned to Leinster, the clear problem child of the current provincial setup. There was talk that Kildare, who beat Dublin in the league, were finally ready to do something in the Leinster championship under their new star-studded management team. Meath, to a lesser extent, were hopeful of being at least competitive with Dublin. Then the Dubs promptly mauled everyone they played, coming through their three games against Wexford, Meath and Kildare with 50 points to spare. Even in 2013, when Dublin were tossing it around like the Harlem Globetrotters, they only had 39 points to spare in the province and only 36 in 2016 when Jim Gavin's big guns were all firing for him. You could argue that the Leinster situation is even more depressing now because a Dublin team which has slipped back a little, in national terms, is still mowing down all comers.
- Paul Keane
Watching the opening montage of The Sunday Game these past seven weeks, have you been like us in finding it somewhat jarring that the image immediately following a serial winner like Kyle Hayes hollering with the Liam McCarthy Cup is of a Tyrone player similarly exuberant parading the Sam Maguire?
Nothing personal against Cathal McShane who laboured so hard to come back from an injury and have an All-Ireland to back up his All-Star talent, but it’s been rather disorienting that the last image we should continue to see on our screens before they turn to the day’s action is of a team that has been as long out of this year’s championship as they were in it.
It’s been too trite to say Tyrone have never made much of a fist of retaining All-Irelands anyway. In 2004 they still managed to reach and partake in an epic league semi-final, play marvellous football through the backdoor and make the last eight of the All-Ireland, all in the wake of Cormac McAnallen’s tragic passing. In 2006 there were other extenuating circumstances in the form of a litany of injuries. In 2009 they won Ulster comprehensively. But in 2022? An 11-point tanking at home to Derry followed by a two-goal first-round qualifier defeat. You’ve to go back as far as Down in 1995 for as underwhelming a defence of an All Ireland in either code. Tyrone earned their All Ireland: the core of that team had been making either All-Ireland semi-finals or finals since 2015. But it’s been diminished by how poor a stab they made of showing why they were champions in the first place.
For such a high-tempo game between two of Gaelic football’s greatest rivals, you would have to commend the way in which Paddy Neilan officiated the Kerry-Dublin All-Ireland semi-final. There weren’t a huge amount of tough games in the football championship but this was at the top of the heap and Paddy did well.
You have to remember that the GAA’s appointments committee were taking a bit of a punt on him as it was his biggest game yet but he came through with flying colours. The stakes were so high and with so many eyeballs on it had he made a glaring error the criticism would have been massive. There were questions in Dublin about the penalty and Davy Byrne’s foul on David Clifford for the winning free but for me both were correct calls by Paddy. Yes, the black card for John Small was on the harsh side but Paddy made that call on the advice of linesman Conor Lane. Paddy had a decent year while Brendan Cawley and Seán Hurson had exceptional ones. Brendan did very well in the Armagh-Donegal qualifier and Seán was deserving of his All-Ireland final appointment for the steady progress he’s been making
The bottom fell out of the Leinster senior football championship so long ago that its rear end has gone blue with the cold. Former Dublin players queued up before this year’s competition to claim that it had been revived and their county would be challenged. That Emperor’s New Clothes fallacy continued up to the final against Kildare before they were blown out of the water. The crowd for that game in Croke Park, you might recall, was not released at the time. It was later learned 33,328 attended the game, the worst figure for a Leinster final in 31 years. As for the semi-finals, the Dublin-Meath and Kildare-Westmeath double-header attracted just 38,081. Long gone are the days when a standalone fixture between Dublin and Meath would have attracted a crowd twice that size. Dublin’s following have long given up on the Leinster SFC and they plan their outings accordingly. Putting the semi-finals out to provincial venues as standalone fixtures or at least creating home and away arrangements so that Meath could once in a while host Dublin in Navan is not a new proposal but seems a necessary one if the provincial council are going to rescue their supposed blue riband competition from extinction.
Before you start, we know there were four weeks between Killian Spillane’s man-of-the-match winning display in the Munster final win over Limerick and the quarter-final victory against Mayo. That’s a hell of a long time to retain your form and hope somebody else doesn’t burst into life at Spillane’s expense. And seeing as Kerry won the latter game in Croke Park, Jack O’Connor and his selectors’ decision not to give the Templenoe man a starting place was justified, Paul Geaney retaining his spot as David Clifford returned from injury. Having said that, not many other teams, if any, would have the luxury of demoting a forward who scored 1-3 from play in his first championship start for Kerry since the Super 8 game against Meath in 2019, in what was only his second start. “I had him as a minor and he was the best minor forward I’d say that I put through my hands,” said O’Connor after the Limerick match. “He’s very, very talented and just hoping that today will bring him on and just help his confidence. He had to wait for his chance and, to be fair, he’s reacted the right way and has been very good in training so we kind of had to pick him.” -
- John Fogarty
These things are never simple and there will be a few grizzled hacks who always want to put a stiff fight for their constituency, but some players just do not get All-Stars despite the body of work they will produce throughout the season.
In the full-back line, and obviously this is printed before a ball is kicked in anger, but it would seem likely that Chrissy McKaigue is a certainty, after a summer in which he held Jack McCarron, Paddy McBrearty, Keelan Sexton and Robert Finnerty scoreless. The only forward to score off him came in the form of two Darren McCurry Worldies.
But consider Conor McCluskey, the young up and coming corner-back alongside him this season.
After playing just seven minutes of Championship football prior to 2022, he marked last year’s Footballer of the Year Kieran McGeary, Kieran Hughes of Monaghan, Jamie Brennan (Donegal) and Aaron Griffin of Clare. All were held scoreless from play and replaced.
In the semi-final, he took up Shane Walsh and didn’t foul once, and also held him scoreless from play, with a few dashes down the wings against each other showcasing McCluskey’s ability to keep the hand in for a tackle while maintaining balance at top speed.
- Declan Bogue
David Clifford. Maybe not as much of a shoo-in as some would imagine, but when Kerry were asked the hard questions in the knockout phase of the championship, David Clifford delivered time and again.
All the more remarkable given the lack of proper training he was able to get in between the Cork and Limerick games, and again before the All-Ireland quarter final win over Mayo.
Dublin took too long to get to grips with him and again Sunday, Galway plotted and toiled unsuccessfully to hold him inside. His brother Paudie and defender Tom O'Sullivan would be best placed to deny David his Best Player gong, but every time something special was demanded in the final, Clifford came up trumps - not least that awkward 67th minute free from the Cusack Stand side that edged Kerry into the lead. Thereafter they broke for home.
- Tony Leen
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