The year in review: Highs and lows of a sporting 2015

Long shot generates thrills, smiles and giddy celebrations

Ireland 1 Germany 0, Aviva Stadium, October 8th: Ken Early and I did a video together afterwards and a friend of mine tweeted something along the lines of "Look at the happy head on him!"

Sure, what other sort of head could you be sporting on a night like the one when Ireland beat Germany.

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Ruby Walsh on Faugheen celebrates with winning trainer Willie Mullins on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival. Photo: Inpho

The moment Shane Long scored brought back memories of Robbie Keane’s late equaliser against Germany in Ibaraki for the rare way the journalists in the press box instinctively joined in with the celebrations around them before quickly recovering their composure and embarking on their more traditional post-goal routine: double-checking the build-up with each other.

It had been even longer, though, since we’d had something like this to savour on home soil. The Dutch losing in Dublin in September 2001 was, in its way, something of a travesty, but in a curious sort of way that only seemed to make the whole thing more enjoyable, especially if you were lucky enough to be at the press conference afterwards where Louis van Gaal grumpily tried to explain the defeat away.

That Joachim Löw failed to face up to his side’s loss a little more graciously was disappointing – the stakes were not nearly so great for the world champions and, unlike the Dutch, they had not actually deserved to win. But then his talk of the 100th long ball being one too many somehow added to the pleasure of it all as well.

As for the game itself, there were times when it was hard not to watch through your fingers for there were spells when Martin O’Neill’s team brought a fair bit of trouble on itself before generally doing just about enough to extinguish the danger.

Long, though, took Ireland’s one really clear-cut chance (and yes, it was from a long ball) quite brilliantly while the Germans fluffed all of theirs and so each side ultimately got what it deserved.

What's not to like about that? Emmet Malone

4,357 wins and 23 years later, the real McCoy hangs up his boots

Tony McCoy's retirement, Sandown, April 25th: That Tony McCoy's final mount should be called "box office" was entirely apt. That the horse didn't win wasn't.

It didn’t impinge one iota, however, on the feelgood factor surrounding the retirement of National Hunt racing’s most successful ever rider amid unprecedented scenes at Sandown in late-April.

Twenty three years after the first of 4,357 career winners went unheralded in front of a handful of fans at Thurles, McCoy was the focal point of interest far beyond racing’s confines, interest which had been building to a crescendo for two months after his shock announcement in February that he would be hanging up his boots at the end of the British season.

What morphed into a lengthy farewell tour wound up on the final day with a 20th British jockeys’ title and the commendation of a rapt sport ringing in the 40-year-old Co Antrim rider’s ears.

Ian Wright presented McCoy with the title trophy and compared the jockey to the Arsenal “Invincibles”. That team were famously unbeaten during the 2003-04 Premiership season. McCoy always pointed out how he got beaten far more regularly than he won.

That’s the lot of every jockey.

But no jump jockey ever beat those odds more than McCoy. It was announced the champion jockey trophy was being "decommissioned" allowing the man of the moment to take it home forever. For such a singular figure in racing history, the gesture was entirely fitting on a day which truly was the end of an era. Brian O'Connor

Ireland wilt in the face of Argentina in glorious, full bloom

Ireland v Argentina, Milennium Stadium, October 9th: It was not a surprise. It was not a one-off. It was not because Ireland were under-powered (missing four principals) in some areas.

It was not because of a lack of preparation. It was not because Ireland “didn’t turn up.”

Argentina are used to being insulted by home unions, from the decision not to award caps against them back in the day, to the Six Nations shutting the door in their face.

To explain Ireland’s World Cup defeat in terms of what Joe Schmidt’s side didn’t or couldn’t do, or who he did or didn’t have on the day, is a further slight to perhaps the most improved team in the world.

It was an afternoon in Cardiff that evaporated before Irish eyes. After 20 minutes, Ireland were playing a chasing game and within those accelerating moments and two flashing tries we marvelled at the strength and gliding speed of Juan Imhoff.

No surprise because Argentina played that way against New Zealand in their first pool match, beating the All Blacks physically and fearlessly for 50 minutes by recycling quicker, hitting harder, running faster.

It was a jolt, a realisation that there is an alternative way to play that not just looks more thrilling but is more effective. Athletic, mobile, high-tempo rugby, unforgiving intensity and, above all, utter self-belief undid Ireland.

Schmidt saw the first 20 minutes as a parade of needless, self-inflicted wounds from which Ireland recovered but, spent by the effort, fell away to more stinging scores.

Others saw Argentina in full bloom and with a greater swagger from their short years in the Rugby Championship, the ultimate school of hard knocks. There was a lesson there too, one from which Ireland may yet learn. Johnny Watterson

A great escape to a 66 and a title that left Bubba trailing in his wake

WGC Bridgestone Invitational, Akron, August 9th: The golfing maxim that "trees are 90 per cent air" generally pre-empts a thwacking sound as urethane collides with timber followed by muttered oaths.

There are rare exceptions and Shane Lowry’s experience during the final round of the WGC Bridgestone Invitational will warm the cockles of every golfer that’s suffered the crushing disappointment of watching his ball career off a tree and find an even more despicable lie.

Playing the 18th hole over the South course at the Firestone Country Club layout, the Offalyman appeared stymied by several trees but “pulled,” by his own admission, a 141-yard gap wedge through the leafy sentinels, taking a gentle feather off a branch en route, to finish 11 feet from the pin, a putt he would hole for a birdie.

His closing 66, earned him a two-shot victory over Bubba Watson, a cheque for €1,444,942, a three-year exemption on the US PGA tour, an invitation to the 2016 US Masters, and a jump into the top 20 in the world rankings. His feat on the 18th was in some respects a reprise of another act of escapology on the 10th; although in that case no trees were harmed in the process.

His victory made it not only a memorable few days for the Lowry family as his brother Alan won the Mullingar Scratch Cup but will serve to galvanise those with a great deal less ability to note that sometimes what seems impossible is a constraint of the imagination and that fortune can favour the brave. John O'Sullivan

Routine excellence brings 10 up for a football team for the ages

Cork v Dublin, Croke Park, September 27th: This will end. We know this will end because, well, things end. But that's about as much as we have to go on. Cork won their 10th All-Ireland in 11 years with very little fanfare and damn little fuss. There was no breathtaking comeback like in 2014, nothing to particularly wow the 31,083 that made up the biggest crowd anywhere in Europe for a domestic women's sports event all year. Only Eamonn Ryan's side can make excellence look this routine.

This wasn’t the prettiest of their All-Ireland wins, not by a long way. They were level at half-time and kicked clear soon after the restart without ever putting Dublin away. They spent the closing stages camped on their goal line, throwing their bodies in the way of hopeful shots as the Jackies laid siege. Some day, one of those shots will go in and Cork’s reign will be over. This wasn’t that day.

Dual stars Briege Corkery and Rena Buckley duly picked up their 15th All-Ireland medals, setting a record that only they will break anytime soon. Valerie Mulcahy, Ger O’Flynn, Bríd Stack and Deirdre O’Reilly all picked up their 10th medal apiece. Numbers to make your brain whizz.

But though we know it will end, we’re no closer to knowing when or how. Eimear Scally came off the bench to energise them in the second half – she was eight when the six originals won their first All-Ireland. Now she’s 19 with two All-Irelands to her name. They retool and replenish as they go.

We could be waiting a while. Malachy Clerkin

Saturday night fever for Ireland after day of dramatic ebbs and flows

Six Nations Super Saturday, March 21st: It's almost hard to believe that there was plenty to cheer in Ireland's calendar rugby year. Actually, there was plenty to cheer, even if it's almost hard to credit amid the recent doom and gloom that Ireland retained the Six Nations outright for the first time since 1949. Yep, Super Saturday was only last March.

The sense of something special brewing began in the second half of the early kick-off in Rome. Wales had only led 14-13 at half-time, but began to cut loose after the interval, running in seven tries including an 11-minute hat-trick by George North.

However, in an uncanny reprise of Ireland’s attempt to win the 2007 Six Nations on points difference from France when kicking off first on the final Saturday, Wales conceded a converted try in the last play of the game. Their 61-20 winning margin boosted their points difference to +53, but that score trimmed Ireland’s target to overhaul Wales from a 28-point winning margin over Scotland to one of 21 points or more.

Paul O’Connell set the ball rolling with the first try in his 101st Irish Test and farewell appearance in the Six Nations, and Ireland’s 40-10 win left England a target of beating France by 27 points at Twickenham. Then came the real fun, particularly the fluctuating mood of the thousands of Irish fans –and a sprinkling of Scots and even French – who adopted Les Bleus and chanted “allez Les Bleus” as they watched the remarkable, fluctuating events in Twickenham, as the game ebbed and flowed before Rory Kockett kicked the ball dead. England had won 53-33, coming up just a converted try short.

Then came the invasion of the main Murrayfield pitch in darkness for an illuminated trophy celebration. A great day to be Irish, widely acknowledged as the greatest day in the history of the championship. Gerry Thornley

Taylor’s gold lets in some light to the inaugural European Games

European Games, Baku, June 27th: Whatever about the lasting merits of being in Baku last June for the uncomfortably lavish hosting of the inaugural European Games by the Azerbaijan government, the moment Katie Taylor stood still inside the boxing arena was stripped-back, unadulterated sporting drama at its finest.

Here was the Bray woman, the headline act of the games, searching for an 18th consecutive title, in real danger of falling one fight short: her semi-final bout against Azerbaijan’s home favourite Yana Alekseevna had been unbearably close and impossible to call. If anything could swing the decision it might surely be the home crowd, packed inside the Crystal Hall, including Azerbaijani’s own sports-mad president Ilham Aliyev.

Then, after what felt like an eternity, the referee raised Taylor’s left hand, and with that she fell to her knees in relief – as indeed did myself and Dave Hooper, the only two Irish print journalists to make the long trip.

Fittingly, it was a split decision. What possibly won it for Taylor was the couple of strong punches towards the end of the last round just as the judges were making their minds up. Just 24 hours later, Taylor still had to beat Estelle Mossely from France to claim another lightweight title, which she duly did, although the true contest had been won against Alekseevna, when Taylor delivered not only in typical style but with remarkable hunger given all she’s already achieved.

The triumph left Taylor as the holder of the Olympic, World, European and European Games titles all at the same time – meaning she's collected every major title there is to be won. Michael O'Reilly provided a sweet footnote 90 minutes later when he won a second gold medal for Ireland, also denying a local favourite, Xaybula Musalov, to claim the men's middleweight crown. Yet the lasting moment and memory from Baku belongs to Taylor. Ian O'Riordan

Hurling rollercoaster hits the heights and the sweet spot

Galway v Tipperary, Croke Park, August 16th: We set out each summer like spoilt children, presuming we're going to see fresh wonders each weekend and then huffing when they don't materialise, as though we're entitled to something special just because we turn up. But even allowing for the fact that we're owed precisely nothing, there was no dressing the summer of football and hurling up. It was about as entertaining as a trip to the dentist's chair.

Galway v Tipp was different, though. It was the hurling we talk about when we boast about hurling. It was the sport we tend to show to other people and go, “See?” It was breakneck and scattergun and full of huge hits and impossible scores. And in the end, the underdogs won.

On a day like that, you have to sit on your suitcase to close it or else some of the stories will fall out the sides. The winning score came from Shane Moloney, a 22-year-old substitute playing in his first ever senior game for Galway.

The losers provided the man of the match in Seamie Callanan, whose 3-8 kept Tipp long after they ought to have perished. Noel McGrath came off the bench for his first involvement since coming out the other side of testicular cancer and popped over what looked like the winner.

Except it wasn’t. Galway came back and levelled and went ahead, all in the blink of an eye. We know now that they were melting down behind the scenes all the while. Sports science, how are ya?

Game of the year. No contest. Malachy Clerkin

Dunne lights up St Andrews with script worthy of Hollywood

The British Open, St Andrews, July 16th-19th: If the script had been presented to a movie mogul, it would have been deemed outlandish. Yet, there was nothing fictional about the character played by Paul Dunne at the 144th edition of the Open championship at St Andrews in Scotland, the home of golf, where his endeavours had the ghosts of old stirring in approval. A week which started with the 22-year-old amateur arriving into his rented home outside the Auld Grey Toon to be greeted by a barking dog which frightened the life out of him developed into one of those storylines where Dunne played the role of main character through much of the drama.

Day by day, the plot grew. From a point early in the week where there were numerous cases of mistaken identity as fans sought his autograph believing him to be Jordan Spieth, the young American who was chasing a third successive Major title to go with his US Masters and US Open crowns, to a point in the championship where Dunne was more often the main focus. It got to the stage Dunne’s every movement seemed to be chronicled, down to the protein pancakes he had for breakfast. He entered the weather-delayed final round tied for the lead with Jason Day and Louis Oosthuizen and as the last player to be sent away from the first tee by the legendary announcer Ivor Robson, who was retiring from his Open duties.

It wasn't to be, as Dunne – seeking to emulate the achievement of Bobby Jones, the last amateur to win the Open – got off to a bogey-bogey start and would eventually slip away to finish 30th as Zach Johnson claimed the claret jug. Philip Reid

Brogan’s final act a fitting signing-off flourish as Dublin reaffirm supremacy

All-Ireland SFC Final, Croke Park, September 20th: There have been a scatter of statistics underpinning the changed nature of Dublin's relationship with Kerry in championship football. For instance only once previously – in 1976 – had they taken the Sam Maguire off a Kerry team in the All-Ireland final.

That’s not all Dublin have taken in recent times from their greatest rivals. Four key performers in September’s victory had strong Kerry connections. The father of rookie centrefielder Brian Fenton, who ended up as Man of the Match, learned his football in the Spa club in Killarney.

In the lead-up to the final the most scrutinised hamstring in the country belonged to Cian O’Sullivan, who recovered sufficiently to play his allotted role as Dublin’s sweeper and defensive linchpin.  With parents from Kilgarvan and Farranfore, the O’Sullivan line is all Kerry but team-mates Alan and Bernard Brogan are a genetic fusion between the great era of the 1970s when father Bernard played for Kevin Heffernan’s team and a mother from Listowel.

Bernard's point before half-time summed up the quicksilver menace of his season even if the final and its wretched conditions wasn't an ideal stage. His brother Alan, who retired this month, then provided a signing-off flourish with the point that put Dublin four ahead in the 68th minute.  As a younger player he was inclined to pepper the opposition posts with shots but this was all calculation – scanning the unfolding attack, left and right, like RoboCop before swinging his left boot and raising a flag in Croke Park one last time. Seán Moran

Destruction of Scotland crowned a year of substantial achievement

Women's Six Nations, February-March: Nobody foresaw a Six Nations title being captured on that freezing Firenze night last February. Not after a hard-fought, messy victory. Well, maybe Sophie Spence did. Or Niamh Briggs. But what an achievement this was when it finally came in such stunning, emphatic fashion; a 73-3 destruction of Scotland the day after the men did so in less impressive fashion.

And this was supposed to be a season of reconstruction. New coaches in Tom Tierney and Anthony Eddy, a refocus on Sevens and the loss of perhaps their two greatest ever players, Fiona Coghlan and Lynne Cantwell, to retirement. And a dreaded World Cup hangover (albeit the 2014 tournament exceeded expectations).

The 5-10 defeat to France, finally, provided a Eureka moment for the decision makers on Lansdowne Road. When the generator failed at the always welcoming Ashbourne RFC, and the game was almost abandoned, the penny finally dropped that international rugby needs to be played in a stadium not a club field.

Gender equality is still a long way off, and in fairness they remain amateurs, but from now on Briggs’s women will be hosting visiting nations on Donnybrook’s all-weather surface (whether that creates its own problems we shall see) with a 1pm slot. Importantly, all three home Six Nations games are on alternative days to their male counterparts.

It seems like Tierney will be given the resources he needs to build for a successful World Cup that UCD and Ravenhill will be hosting in 2017. The first ever November international took place at The Twickenham Stoop last month.

An expected heavy defeat to the world champions ended in an encouraging 8-3 loss from an experimental line-up.

We also hear three more Test matches are slated for November 2016. That’s huge progress but, still, it’s reactive.

Still, it was a very good year. Gavin Cummiskey

Unforgettable sporting drama as Japan produce an upset for the ages

South Africa v Japan, Brighton, September 18th: There were still four hours to go until South Africa played Japan at the Amex Stadium and I was looking for a pub in Brighton showing Chelsea v Arsenal. By the time I found the one place showing the game on the outskirts of town I had missed the entire first half. I sulked about missing the bit where Diego Costa had provoked Gabriel into getting sent off. I assumed then that I'd missed my allotted moment of sporting excitement for the day. I turned out to be mistaken.

The Springbok hulks looked like green-shirted transformers and, although the first 70 minutes of the match were quite even on the scoreboard, everyone understood that Japan had no chance. That only changed in the last 10 minutes, as everyone simultaneously realised that Japan could actually win this, and the crowd’s ecstatic crescendo willed the Japanese players on to victory.

With his colonel’s bearing and silly green blazer, South Africa’s coach Heyneke Meyer epitomises the pomposity and arrogance of his country’s rugby culture, and yet you had to feel for him as he faced the humiliation of defeat. His appearance at the press conference reminded you of the scenes when a mighty Japanese industrial concern unexpectedly goes bankrupt, and its disgraced chairman has to appear in public to weep ritual tears of shame.

The South African players were impressive in defeat. They humbly promised to do better. The Japanese players hung around in the mixed zone until the journalists started to drift away. On a day that defied explanation, the usual questions were inadequate.

One journalist asked the secondrow Luke Thompson how Japan were going to make sure they were mentally ready for the game against Scotland in four days time. “How do you forget this, you know, and move on?”

Thompson stared at him disbelievingly. "Mate, I'm never gonna forget this for the rest of my life." Ken Early

Unscripted Melody can’t take the sheen off Mullins’s festival four-timer

Cheltenham Festival Day One, Cheltenham, March 10th: Forget that hoary old line about just winners being remembered: when the tale of Willie Mullins's opening day four-timer at Cheltenham is recalled more are likely to picture Annie Power's dramatic final-flight exit than the name of the stable companion who eventually brought up the fourth leg.

Anyone who was there, however, will never forget the iron-grip exerted on the first day of the 2015 festival by the champion trainer.

Hindsight will remember Mullins ultimately breaking the Cheltenham record with eight winners as near-inevitable. It had been billed for months as a festival revolving around Irish jump racing’s dominant figure. But such billing had been pinned to others in the past only for expectation to fizzle out, or crash on its nose at the last.

Day One of 2015 was notable though for everything mostly going exactly as it should. Bookmakers milking the publicity machine had issued dire warnings about what would happen to them if the Mullins hotpots – Douvan, Un De Sceaux, Fuagheen and Annie Power – all won. And in they came.

By the time Faugheen led home a Mullins 1-2-3 in the Champion Hurdle it seemed pre-ordained, a rare piece of racing synchronicity sending punters to betting heaven.

Annie Power started 1-2 for the David Nicholson Hurdle to deliver bookmakers the final knockout blow. She arrived at the last galloping all over her rivals and Ruby Walsh motionless. Maybe her fall was a reminder on the dangers of presumption. But down she came in an ugly spill she was lucky to gallop away from unscathed.

That the bookies escaped too had millions shaking their heads, so much so the fact Mullins still won the race got almost overshadowed.

And the name of the winner – Glens Melody. Brian O'Connor

Who cares about the match – in Vegas the ring walk was the real thrill

Conor McGregor v Jose Aldo, Las Vegas, December 12th: If you asked me what was the best bit of Conor McGregor's world title win against Jose Aldo, I'd have to say it was the ring walk.

The lights go down and little stars flicker into life all around the darkened slopes of the Grand Garden Arena as hundreds of Irish fans start filming on their phones. There’s a rattle of drums and the shrill blast of a tin whistle, and then Sinéad O’Connor is singing the opening lines of The Foggy Dew.

Sinéad’s delivery is languid and a hyped-up fight crowd can only take so much Celtic mist so the second line is edited out for brevity. Just as Sinéad is singing about the Angelus bells o’er the Liffey swells, McGregor’s face appears simultaneously on all the big screens, strutting towards the camera with a tricolour around his shoulders, grinning like a lunatic, but a curiously calm and self-assured one. The sample from Notorious BIG – “No-No-No-NoTORious!” – announces the segue into McGregor’s real ring-walk song, Hypnotize.

The mix is a perfect statement of what McGregor is all about, a clever fusion of the nationalist mysticism we sentimentally pretend to venerate, and the swaggering hip-hop that actually the real culture of all the Irish who grew up watching music videos on high-numbered TV channels.

The crowd gives out a continuous roar as they watch McGregor bouncing and dodging and shadow boxing on his way towards the Octagon. McGregor parades around with his arms aloft and performs a series of outrageous spin kicks that make him look like a character in a video game. The spectacle is a headrush.

As for the fight itself, it's over before anyone realises it – a brief flurry of punches that only starts to make sense on the replay. Does a UFC belt represent a triumph of hype over substance? Who cares. We can always say we were there for that ring walk. Ken Early