As Seán Moran puts it in his report on the Ulster final, “now Jimmy’s winning shootouts”. Donegal’s 6-5 triumph over Armagh on penalties in Clones completed a remarkable turnaround for the county in the space of 12 months. “This time last year, Donegal were lost and wandering,” writes Malachy Clerkin, “a day like this would have felt oceans away.” And Ulster titles “don’t come more gruesomely-earned” than having to beat Derry, Tyrone and Armagh en route to raising that trophy. More heartache for Armagh, then, this their fourth successive championship to end in a shootout defeat. “It’s a ball one way or a ball the other. A slip one way or a slip the other. When you lose you’re the gobshite, but that’s just the way it goes,” said their manager Kieran McGeeney. Dublin march on, but Philip Reid saw them make heavy weather of beating Louth in the Leinster final, the performance providing “food for thought” for Dessie Farrell as they advance to the group phase of the championship. No such worries for Dublin’s women who collected their 11th Leinster title with an emphatic triumph over Meath. Denis Walsh, meanwhile, is struggling to recall a better game of hurling than the one he witnessed in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday, Cork scoring a goal and a point in the final two minutes to stun Limerick. “It was breathless and spellbinding and fierce and relentless and at times it was delirious,” he writes. Nicky English shares that assessment, doffing his cap to Shane Kingston in particular for his contribution to the victory. Galway’s hurlers are in a considerably less happy place, Denis looking at the challenge facing Henry Shefflin who is in his third season as manager but whose team “has no identity or momentum”.
You could say the same about Manchester United. “This – genuinely – is the worst United in more than 30 years,” writes Ken Early after watching their defeat to Arsenal on Sunday. Arsenal’s title hopes are, then, still alive, but the odds are still stacked in Manchester City’s favour. “It’s hard to comprehend that you can play a season like never before, breaking the records of even a great club like Arsenal, and still potentially finish with nothing.”
In rugby, John O’Sullivan was at the RDS to see Leinster hand out a 61-14 drubbing to Ospreys in the URC, Linley Mackenzie saw Munster’s seven-try demolition of Connacht, while Michael Sadlier was in Llanelli to witness Ulster boost their play-off hopes with a victory over Scarlets.
There was no joy for Ireland’s cricketers in Clontarf on Sunday, Nathan Johns reporting on their seven wicket defeat by Pakistan, but over in North Carolina Rory McIlroy produced “a final round masterclass” to win the Wells Fargo Championship. He is, writes Philip Reid, “like a living, walking ATM machine at the moment”. His prize? Just the $3.6 million.
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TV Watch: Cork and Kerry square up in this evening’s Munster minor football final in Páirc Uí Rinn (TG4, 7.30pm), and a bit later Aston Villa host Liverpool in the Premier League (Sky Sports, 8pm) while RTÉ 2′s Against the Head has the highlights from the weekend’s rugby action (8pm).
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