You might have read during the week that Saudi Arabia has decided to postpone its hosting of the 2029 Asian Winter Games. No reason was actually given, but you had to wonder if it might just be weather-related. Although maybe when you have that much money it’s easy to turn sand into snow?
Watching the opening games in the football and hurling leagues over the weekend, the thought might have occurred that we could do with a weather machine ourselves.
The women of Dublin and Kerry squared up in Clondalkin at the start of their campaigns, and with a heap of rule-tweaking being tried out, the game would have been of no little interest. But for a chunk of it, TG4 needed windscreen wipers on their cameras, the conditions beyond abysmal.
And later at Croke Park, for the Dublin boys’ game against Donegal, Micheál Ó Domhnaill was the only one with a bit of sense, donning waterproof pants while Coman Goggins and Kevin Cassidy nigh-on sank into the swamp in their ultra-absorbent cotton strides.
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And later again, Damian Lawlor was dripping and close to horizontal when he welcomed us to Semple Stadium for the meeting of Tipp and Galway. Joe Canning and Liam Sheedy were too, and would have felt aggrieved if they had learned that their RTÉ Sport umbrellas were half the size of TG4’s.
At this time of year, there are two categories of people we don’t acknowledge enough, if at all – those camera-wielding folk, and the ones who prepare pitches for these tussles. Close enough to all of them that appeared on our TV screens over the weekend resembled finely combed snooker tables, leaving you in awe. You’d need a canoe to get from one end of this garden to another, so these people truly are wizards.
In terms of chaos, the contest between Galway and Mayo in Salthill deserved 11 out of 10 for excitement. There were even some tremendous shemozzles thrown in like there was some history between the pair. Most amazing of all, the sun came out.
“What’s it they say? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” Mayo manager Andy Moran had told TG4 before the game, accepting that he was kind of going into the unknown even after his meticulous winter’s work with his panel.
Well, they weren’t punched on Sunday, just smacked a bit, Mayo holding on after a fiery enough Galway comeback. The leagues, then, are up and running, and all you can hope is that the sun isn’t a stranger in the weeks ahead.
The Premier League trophy has, of course, been a stranger to the paws of Arsenal captains for quite a while now, but it had seemed like they had one hand on it for the bulk of this campaign. The collywobbles would, though, appear to have set in.
Mind you, with close enough to 80 per cent of the possession in the opening stages of their game against Manchester United on Sunday, they appeared to have things back under control, United helping ease their nerves by scoring a goal for them.
But then, as Gary Neville noted, “Maguire has turned into Beckenbauer and Dalot is like Cafu”. Bryan Mbeumo levelled with a beaut of a finish, Patrick Dorgu scored a worldie, and after Arsenal levelled, Matheus Cunha ... ah here. Forget Bend it like Beckham, Curl it like Cunha.
“What am I seeing,” Gary asked the clouds, this from a team that had taken three points from games against three of the bottom five, Wolves, Leeds and Burnley, before beating City in the Manchester derby and leaving Arsenal’s collies wobbling further.
“It’s 121 games since Arsenal last conceded three goals at home in the league,” Peter Drury told us. “And that was against Luton.” Luton!
Back in the studio, Patrick Vieira was crestfallen. Man City fan Micah Richards was purring. Our Roy? Well, he remains to be convinced by talk of Michael Carrick being the love-child of Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson.
Micah: “Would you give the job to Carrick now, Roy?”
Roy: “You’re being silly.”
That’s a no, then, after all United have been here before with the Ole man. But at least the sun has come out, for now. No doubt, there’ll be more deluges ahead, but sure look, they might as well bask while there’s a break in the weather.
