Big orangey, yellowy, reddish blob spotted in Portlaoise

TV View:   The weather people appeared to have lost track of Hurricane Ivan on Saturday afternoon. It was last seen, they said, heading for Cuba but suddenly the big orangey, yellowy, reddish blob had veered east on the radar and they weren't quite sure where it was going.

Micheal O'Domhnaill and Denise Horan could have told them: it had turned up at O'Moore Park, Portlaoise, to have a look at the women's All-Ireland football semi-finals.

Indeed, when the pair attempted to chat on the pitch at half-time in the Dublin v Kerry game they were nigh on lifted out of it, last seen heading for Havana.

By the time Ivan set off west again he'd seen Mayo and Galway draw and the Dubs dispose of Kerry, Fiona Corcoran scoring the decisive goal near the death.

"Bhí sé down to the wire," she told O'Domhnaill at full-time, thus clinching the the Bilingual GAA Star of the Month award, to add to her player of the match gong.

Would Ivan return for the hurling final? John Eagleton said "hmm. . . no . . ish" on RTÉ, but Sky News' weather woman suggested north Dublin would have a Venetian look about it come Sunday afternoon.

But, as one Cork-born viewer noted: "What would Sky News know about hurling? At least Eagleton knows Cork need a dry sod".

Right.

So, for fear he'd be labelled a langer, Ivan stayed away, left ticketless for the final like so many Cork and Kilkenny die-hards. Ger Loughnane had bumped in to "literally thousands" of them on O'Connell Street yesterday morning and feared for the safety of the ticket in his pocket.

"If you appear with a ticket it's like appearing on a desert island with a McDonalds," he told Michael Lyster. "They're all watching you. I wanted to leave a ticket in the hotel but yer man said 'no way', he said 'look at them out there', and there were about 200 eyes looking in at me, waiting for me to produce the ticket."

Funnily enough, maintaining the theme, Cork goalkeeper Donal Óg Cusack implied, in the build-up on RTÉ yesterday, that his team-mate Seán Óg Ó hAilpín was a few fries short of a Happy Meal himself when they were in Vietnam, taking the panel on a marathon-length jog around steamy Saigon in search of a patch of land suitable for a bit of hurling. "And I'd a sick stomach at the time too," he said, cringing at the memory.

What Seán Óg and Johnny Pilkington would have made of each other if they'd been fellow countymen, well, God alone knows. "How did you prepare for a final," Mary Kennedy asked the Offaly man on Up for the Match.

The night before he'd have "three or four grand pints in the local pub, the safest place to be", and then "on match day you'd go into the dressing-room, the lads'd be banging the hurl off the table, they'd be psyching, I'd go in, tap the ball off the shower wall, get togged out and then go in and just have the last fag, meself and John Troy".

Just think, if Micheal Martin had banned smoking in the work-place a few years back Pilkington would have had to stand in the wind and the rain, in the beer garden outside the Offaly dressing-room, for his last fag and he'd probably have caught a chill and wouldn't have been half the player he was. Mind you, would you credit it, he "gave up the fags after the hurling was over". Contrary divil.

Pilkington's hurling career was just a touch more successful than Daire O'Brien's, which, he conceded, amounted to one half of a minor game for Wicklow. Back from England, where he now lives, for the final, Des Cahill asked him if he had to explain to the English what hurling was all about.

"No," he said, "but I have to explain it to the people of Wicklow."

Wicklow watched and learned, then, as Kilkenny and Cork started the final tied at 28-all. A high-scoring build-up. It was quite evident after 15 minutes that Kilkenny would make it 29-28, not least because of JJ Delaney's form.

"It's like plucking apples off a neighbour's (silence) . . . apple tree," said Ger Canning of Delaney's imperious fielding. Goldenly delicious you might say.

But then, it seemed, Hurricane Ivan turned up for the second half, stormed the gates of Croke Park, took his place in Cork's half-forward line and that was that: Cork 29, Kilkenny 28.

Canning confirmed as much when he said: "The wind is supporting Cork". Mind you, "Cyclone" Corcoran didn't do a bad job either, or Joe "Tornado" Deano. Not to mention "Gale Force" Niall McCarthy.