All-Ireland final replay will bring more bedlam and brilliance

Nobody knows anything. Under a mutinous blanket of city sky, tens of thousands of Dubliners and the legion of Mayo’s ever-faithful fled to the streets, glad it had ended.

The people were drained, bruised, confused and spooked; who knows how the footballers felt. Now, they have to go through it all over again.

It took a brilliant, hugely brave 77th minute point from Mayo’s captain, Cillian O’Connor, to carry one of the strangest ever All-Ireland football finals to a replay.

Hijacked

From the beginning, it was as if this centenary final was hijacked by some gremlin intent on frying the mind of every man, woman and child in Croke

Park

. For most of the match, Dublin seemed on the verge and

Mayo

looked on the brink.

The rain fell. The sky fell. The lights came on. Star players went off. This final was just over 22 minutes old when it entered the GAA scroll reserved for weirdness and quiz questions. Mayo were the only team to score and yet Dublin led. How?

Few teams have had the misfortune to suffer from one own-goal in an All-Ireland final. Mayo and Mayo alone could draw two such freaks of bad luck from the fates.

When Bernard Brogan’s rushed shot deflected off Kevin McLoughlin after nine minutes, Mayo’s supporters could console each other that the worst had happened. The mischief at work had other plans.

Dublin's next goal came courtesy of a ball the excellent Colm Boyle accidentally fly-kicked into his own net.

Had the Mayo men called a halt to this All-Ireland quest right then, the world would have understood. But Salem is not in Co Mayo and their manager is a rationalist.

"My heart didn't sink," said Stephen Rochford.

“We still had 60 minutes to rectify it. My job isn’t to feel sorry for myself or the group or all of Mayo. My job is to see can we do something a bit better.”

Agonisingly close

And so they came roaring back. Dublin, the reigning All-Ireland champions, couldn’t get their attack to fully fire and were twice reeled in by the challengers, culminating in O’Connor’s late equaliser.

They had a three-point lead in the last minute and were agonisingly close to eclipsing the Seventies’ gang as the iconic city team. But it finished 2-09 to 0-15.

"Just . . . happy," said Jim Gavin afterwards. "Happy that we are still in the competition. The luck was with us today. And we'll certainly acknowledge that."

Greatness deferred. Paradise postponed. The replay is fixed for Saturday, October 1st at 5pm. The forecast: bedlam and brilliance, with showers.