A day of days in the football and hurling championships. And it’s still only April. Mind you, keeping up with it all was some task.
We can only assume that our man Ciarán Kirk, who had the job of notifying our readers of every major development in every game across the country on our live blog, from Cork to Letterkenny and sideways too, is now in a health farm.
That’s where Enda McGinley’s football forecasts might end up, too. They are now, he conceded while on duty with RTÉ in Castlebar for the meeting of Mayo and Roscommon, the worse for wear.
“I certainly didn’t see Roscommon 10 points up in this game when I was coming down the road. I didn’t see Down beating Donegal either, and I didn’t see Westmeath beating Meath. So, this predictions thing? We may all just hang them up at this stage.”
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“The beauty of the championship,” Cathal Mullaney chuckled.
Our viewing began in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, where Cork welcomed their old muckers, Limerick. A blue sky, a sea of red in the stands and a pitch so green and smooth it wouldn’t look out of place at The Crucible. Anyone would think summer is approaching.
Anthony Daly was tingling at the prospect of the game, Liam Sheedy less so because he was in a tizz about Tipp’s trip to Walsh Park later in the day. Still, he expected it to be yet another zinger between the counties, an expectation that looked a little on the overoptimistic side when Limerick went seven points up. A damp squib?
Needless to say, no. It turned into another, well, exhilarating exhibition of excellence, with even a small shemozzle or two thrown in. “All the old-school lads will love this, hurleys breaking all over the place,” said Brendan Cummins during a rather competitive second half. The upshot? Cork put to bed the notion that they’d forgotten how to score goals – and won. “It just keeps on giving,” said Anthony of the fixture.
Next ports of call? North London and Castlebar, all at the same time, which is a complicated journey.
In the former location, Katie McCabe (and Arsenal) were playing Lyon in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, the team-sheets, as our presenter Marie Crowe intimated, resembling a who’s who of international football. And in Castlebar, Mayo were hosting Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final.
Both games, as it turned out, followed a similar pattern. Lyon and Mayo took early leads, but Arsenal and the Rossies produced second halves that had their supporters dancing in the aisles. Defending champions Arsenal won 2-1 and are one decent leg away from reaching the final again. Roscommon are already through to the final after demolishing Mayo.
And Cora Staunton didn’t hold back on her county’s failings post-match, naming names and skewering the lot of them. Paul Flynn was a little gentler, but not by much, suggesting that the lack of movement from Mayo’s rearguard had them resembling a set of statues.
A gutting day for Mayo, then, as it was for the Irish women’s rugby team on Saturday. It was 7-7 at half-time away to France, Ireland having played well enough to have had a handsome enough lead at that point, but they neglected to take their chances.
The Virgin Media panel of Eimear Considine, Fiona Hayes and Eimear Corri Fallon feared a mighty price would be paid by Ireland for being less than clinical – reminding us that a very different French side often appears in second halves after stern telling-offs at the break. And so it proved. France 26, Ireland 7.
Sabastian Sawe was, of course, decidedly clinical when he became the first man to (officially) record a sub-two-hour run when he won Sunday’s London Marathon. Spare a thought for the runner-up, Yomif Kejelcha – he had a sub-two-hour run too, but will be a mere footnote in marathon history.
The BBC brought us all the drama, the day featuring an impressive 38 Guinness World Records. Sawe was the headliner on that list, but hats off too to Simon Fannon for knitting the longest scarf in history while running a marathon (5.59m). We might be unfair here to Enda McGinley, but we’d guess he never saw that coming either.
