SOME LINGERING almost wistful final lines for the big time Gaelic football season. A grey elegiac day which was themed on endings.
Cork put an end to two decades of lamentation and regained the All-Ireland football championship. Down’s record of never having lost in an All-Ireland final ceased to be.
Afterwards, for an hour or two in the Croke Park press box, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh lingered with family, friends and well-wishers.
The more times change the less they stay the same. While Micheál’s lyrical voice will echo like a hymn in this cathedral for decades to come, Cork and Down didn’t give him much to work with. It was a poor quality game, the personality of which was dictated by Cork’s fear of losing again.
“They made it hard for themselves but it makes it all the sweeter that they showed the resolve and got over the line at last,” said Cork’s manager Conor Counihan.
It was Cork’s seventh title, hewn from a footballing history that has seen them lose twice as many finals as they won. For several years they had been struggling under the pressure of expectation and coming up short again and again.
Yesterday, they stuttered their proclamation of freedom with a blurt of four unanswered points in five minutes late in the second half.
They went from being a point in arrears to holding a three-point lead. That proved to be just enough. They clung on for a one-point win.
There is an old cliche about the footballers of Down which suggests that when they cross the Border into Dublin on their periodic raids down here, they begin to walk funny. By the time they have hit Jones Road they can’t help it but they are swaggering and throwing shapes.
After half an hour in Croke Park yesterday Down were leading by five points and Cork had yet to score from play. Down were stunning to watch when they moved forward with speed and confidence.
Cork seemed half asleep and during breaks in play, you expected a sommelier to walk on instead of a waterboy.
Cork had shed the burden of favouritism by lining out without their injured talisman and captain Graham Canty and then playing the first half without any apparent game plan and a policy of scoring only when it was absolutely unavoidable.
For the second half, though, they resurrected Canty and drew on fine performances from Daniel Goulding and Donncha O’Connor in their full-forward line to win by a point.
A sense of relief among the Cork contingent in the crowd of 81,604 was the most palpable emotion.
“Ah. It feels all right now,” their captain Graham Canty told a downbeat press conference afterwards. “It is humbling being captain of this bunch of players. I don’t understand why I am in here, just because I am captain.”
They were a lot of things but they weren’t infectious. Yesterday was about endings. For Cork, it was about getting the job done after so many bad days. Playing for fun is an idea for the future.