Armagh blitzkrieg rolls on as Operation No Flow stalls

TV View: For a while there it looked like Cork and Tipperary wouldn't get going till four in the morning.

The problem, as far as we could gather, was that the people who turned up to see Kris Kristofferson at Fitzgerald Stadium on June 27th were still trying to get out of Killarney but were stuck behind the people who had been to the Bryan Adams concert two nights before but who couldn't get out either because, after finally getting past a convoy of Americans in ponies and traps, they had now run in to half of Cork and Tipperary who were trying to get into Killarney. Operation No Flow, then, was in full swing.

The impasse presented all kinds of surreal possibilities, like us viewers being treated to 70 minutes of Kris and Bryan singing Everything I Do, I Do It For Me And Bobby McGee, with Joe Deane on drums, Benny Dunne on slide guitar and Marty Morrissey on bongos.

Not even this prospect, though, raised RTÉ panellist Peter Finnerty's spirits. "Absolutely ludicrous," he said of the decision to play the game in Killarney, leaving us guessing that he'd had to leave Galway in 1993 to make it to Fitzgerald Stadium in time to take up his punditry position. No wonder he was peeved.

Tomás Mulcahy, who'd had to set off from Cork in 1995, agreed with Finnerty but suggested that even if the game was in Letterkenny, the supporters would still travel, such was their loyalty. The Munster Council scratched its chin and said "hmm, there's an idea".

Meanwhile, the linesmen had to be rescued from the bottleneck by the Garda.

Mind you, they were in no rush to be rescued because they were stuck in traffic with The Corrs, who'd played in Fitzgerald Stadium on June 26th, and were only a quarter-of-a-mile ahead of Kris and three-quarters ahead of Bryan and staring into the mad eyes of the oncoming half of Cork and Tipperary, who were busy singing I never loved you anyway at each other.

The Tipp team, meanwhile, must have had the use of a helicopter because they turned up first at Fitzgerald Stadium, going five points up after 20 minutes. But then Cork arrived and hauled it all back. And won.

Ger Canning told us that Timmy McCarthy was "much maligned" in certain Cork circles.

Ger was being polite. What "much maligned" actually means is: he's been consistently told that he's good for feckin' nothing and how he's on the panel - never mind on the feckin' team (or subs' bench) - is a feckin' mystery, the langer.

So, when Timmy scored that goal, he was probably entitled to turn to the camera and ask: "who's the langer now, boys?". But he resisted.

Not that reaching the All-Ireland quarter-finals is a damned bit of use to Cork because by the time their opponents in the last eight are lined up and ready to go in Letterkenny, the Cork hurlers will be passing the time accompanying Kris and Bryan on Help Me Make It Through The Summer Of '69, while waiting for the lights to turn green in downtown Killarney.

So, hurling in Killarney and an Ulster football final in Croke Park. A wacky weekend. Colm O'Rourke, bristling with excitement at the prospect of seeing an all-Ulster affair, tipped Armagh to win.

"The old dog for the hard road in a dour battle," as he put it.

"I don't expect it to be open, I don't expect it to be attractive, as we know Ulster teams tend to have a negative influence on Gaelic football in general," he said. He's mellowing, then. Joe Brolly tipped Donegal.

According to Martin McHugh on the BBC, the whole of Donegal had tipped Donegal too, ("not just for this match, for the All-Ireland"), and when Donegal tips Donegal that's when it all goes wrong.

When Donegal expects . . . nothing materialises; when Donegal expects nothing . . . an All-Ireland title (see 1992) materialises. That banner - "Donegal to send Orangemen home in time for the 12th" - didn't, then, augur well.

Half-time. "Men against boys, we're getting a football lesson," said McHugh, who was as ashen-faced and despondent as every one of his expectant fellow county-people.

Full-time. "Armagh were like a German Panzer division, they just rolled over Donegal," said Brolly.

"Armagh won't thank you, you shouldn't have mentioned Panzer divisions - they got wiped out," O'Rourke pointed out.

"But only when they ran out of oil," said Brolly, "and there's a plentiful supply of that in south Armagh."

So, the well-oiled Panzer division progresses. In other words: Achtung! Armagh!