Subscriber OnlySports Briefing

Mary Hannigan: Sevens heaven in the season that keeps on giving

Derry and Armagh provide ‘nerve-shredder’ Ulster final, Munster triumph over Leinster in ‘epic encounter’

Eve Higgins, Lucy Mulhall and Anna McGann celebrate victory over Fiji, securing qualification for next year's Olympic Games in Paris. Photograph: Martin Seras Lima/Inpho

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Mon May 15 2023 - 10:44

As Gerry Thornley puts it, it’s “the season that keeps on giving,” yet another memorable rugby weekend seeing the Irish women’s Sevens qualify for their first ever Olympic Games and Munster reach the URC final after their “pulsating” one point win over their old buddies Leinster.

“I get shivers just thinking about it,” Irish captain Lucy Mulhall told John O’Sullivan after Sunday morning’s 10-5 victory over Fiji in Toulouse sealed their place in Paris 2024, an achievement that gives the women’s game here no small lift after all the gloom and doom surrounding the fifteens’ Six Nations campaign.

Munster have suffered their fair share of gloom and doom too in most of their meetings with Leinster in recent times, but, as Gerry writes, they turned it all around in this “epic encounter” and now have Saturday week’s URC final against the Stormers in Cape Town to savour. A game in which Old man Earlsy – aka Keith Earls – will aim to win his first trophy with Munster in 12 years.

In Gaelic games, “after the worst of weeks”, writes Malachy Clerkin, Derry and Armagh produced a “nerve-shredder” of an Ulster final in Clones, Derry winning on penalties in the end. “A brilliant game for the neutrals, a sh*tty one for us,” as Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney described it.

READ MORE

Mickey Harte might have used a similar description for his Louth side’s 21-points defeat by Dublin. Gordon Manning heard him sum up the experience, concluding that “getting that sort of lesson from Dublin suggests to me that they have found an angst in their game again”.

And Nicky English talks us through the “damp squib” that was Clare’s victory over Waterford, reckoning that “there are very few tougher gigs in hurling than managing Waterford”. Davy Fitz would no doubt agree.

In his Tipping Point column, Denis Walsh writes about the “peculiar phenomenon” of losing intercounty teams being “abandoned” by their supporters when, he asks, is it not “the solemn duty of supporters to stand by their team in their hour of need”? But, the trend tells him that, on the whole, they’re more “flaky” than “faithful”.

The flaky might argue that sport is meant to provide entertainment and escapism, and watching a losing team provides neither. With soccer at least, Ken Early writes that it has never been about entertainment and escapism, instead offering “a sense of tribal belonging and identity, the experience of sharing a common cause and living through common victories and defeats”.

Telly watch: TG4 have live coverage this evening of the Munster Under-20 hurling final between Cork and Clare (7.30), while Sky Sports bring us the latest chapter in Leicester’s efforts to avoid relegation and Liverpool’s challenge for a Champions League spot (kick-off 8.0).