McDonagh’s sublime fourth shot captures elite end of bowling

Arthur McDonagh, with his brother Timmy - his roadshower, his father Timmy and his son Timmy - who is also a really great bowler. Pic: Gretta Cormican

Irish road bowling suffers from a perception among many Irish sports fans that hurling often suffers from international observers.

When you show a clip of hurling to the uninitiated they often focus on the physical contact. They think this is about people running around a field beating each other with sticks. 

When you mention bowling to people not familiar with it, they often imagine a winding boreen with grass in the middle, a few old men in flat caps and a donkey watching over a fence.

As a lifelong bowling and hurling fan I am always dismayed by this lack of appreciation. The reality is us humans form opinions of the world that are sometimes at odds with reality.

Bowling, like hurling, takes a while to tune into. You need to know what you are looking at, what to look out for. This reality hit me like a bolt of lightning on Sunday when I was up close to Arthur McDonagh’s now famous fourth shot in his All-Ireland senior win. What did I see and what did I understand in that split second.

Fans in Keady have an internal image of that bowl imprinted on their brains. It’s like a clip on TikTok or Instagram. We can see how it hit the road, how close it was to the edge, how it careered along in that gritty no-man’s land that lines the side of the road. We appreciate the spin, the speed and the audacity of McDonagh in taking it on.

The technical precision was extraordinary. It had to be within a few centimetres of the road’s edge. Had it been a few centimetres right it would have come to grief in the grass verge. If it had been a few centimetres left it would have crossed the road. It needed the energy to go the few hundred metres to get past Twynam’s corner.

That is the sublime act that captures the elite end of bowling. In the same way that a Brian Corcoran, a Joe Canning, a Tony Kelly or a Noel McGrath might enact a stroke of genius on a hurling field. Hurling fans instantly know what they saw and have the tools to analyse and appreciate it. The same applies to bowling.

After that shot, there was a sense that McDonagh would not be caught by Colm Rafferty or anyone else. Other scores turn into battles of will and skill. The intermediate women’s final was one of those timeless contests. Albhe O’Shea took gold, but Lily O’Rourke’s silver has a lot of cache too.

O’Shea looked to have the weapons to pull away, but O’Rourke just dug in and she won the lead with three to go. The last few shots favour the Ulster style and she was on home tarmac and with a vocal local contingent willing her on.

She played a huge third last bowl. O’Shea didn’t beat it, but she came close. O’Shea was now in a moment where everything is on the line. She was looking at a road that winds right. If she failed to get to the end of that wind, then her All-Ireland was over. Cometh the hour the saying goes, in this case cometh the woman. She nailed it and followed with an equally good last shot.

Small margins, Páidí Ó Sé’s grain of rice, so often decide who takes the cup home. One such small margin came against Ger Connolly in the men’s junior B final against Ruaraí O’Reilly. Connolly was just too tight left with his 13th bowl. Whether he would have beaten O’Reilly in the last shot, we will never know, but he certainly would have been in a last shot.

Six bowlers went home disappointed from Keady. For Méabh Cuinnea it was one of those days where she could not find her highest note. She needed her best to counter Connie Mallon who was delivering the performance of her life. An unlucky lost bowl down to Twynam’s didn’t help, even the greatest need the gods with them.

Jack Allen will ponder on his slow start in the Boys U16 final. He is another with an array of talents to reach the pinnacle. Johnny Campbell had a similar experience last month in the All-Ireland U18 final, he learned from that hurt and was in the zone from the off this time.

Eoin O’Riordan always looked a few notches ahead of Johnny Kelly in the veteran final. There was little Kelly could do, but losing will sit hard on the charismatic Ulster man.