Decent finale to the annual diminuendo

LOCKERROOM:The league may be the only competition in the wide world that cools down as it hots up, writes Tom Humphries

FOR US atheists there is a nagging suspicion that the whole attraction of the concept of reincarnation is the idea that in a previous existence everybody was Alexander the Great or Plato. What if, however, every incarnation for eternity was just a life of disappointment. Suppose you were born and reborn and born again to great fanfare and welcome and died every time to indifference and derision. See. You probably wouldn't be so keen on reincarnation if it was like the National Football League.

We went to a happy launch of the thing a few months ago. Jason Ryan of Wexford was there talking about his late start in the Bainisteoir's bib. Ciarán Whelan was sitting at our table. Brian McIver was explaining how winning last year's league wasn't such a bad thing for Donegal. Bertie made a speech.

Every year the National Football League is midwifed into existence with a birth announcement that promises good things and lots of them.

This year's incarnation was laid to rest in the modest pine box that is Parnell Park. The GAA sent the wrong cups along and Derry celebrated by lifting the O'Byrne Cup. The Division Two trophy was on hand for some reason but was deemed too modest in appearance to chuck to a winning captain.

We were in Navan for a sleepy Saturday night and not even the most rabid, one-eyed Dub could muster the energy to begrudge Westmeath their Division Two title. And, honestly, the persecution complex in Dublin right now is so finely honed that we could begrudge anybody anything. But Westmeath beat the Dubs with a modicum of comfort and the weary post mortems centred on whether those electric paddle bats they use in ER departments could be used on the Blues before the summer.

So April isn't even out and the leagues are done and dusted. If Derry stayed a long, long while on the field yesterday soaking in the Donnycarney sun and the sweet smell of success it was probably to avoid the downer that was facing them as they met the media coming off the field. Does this mean ye have accepted that ye won't win the championship? What about Ballybofey in seven weeks? Are ye sitting ducks? We were only short of commiserating with them. The Derry players for their part came off the field like men who had just been apprehended by the Garda and were trying to sober up. They wiped loopy grins from their faces and reassured us they were drawing a line under the league already - it was nice to win but this wasn't what their year would be judged on.

This may be a radical concept alien to the sensibilities of the Gael, but perhaps if a league is to be a league it would be best played without a final. Or if there has to be a final why not just give home advantage to the team that finishes top of the league. Having 9,732 at a double header of finals yesterday in Parnell Park was the equivalent of a private burial.

It's a funny old business, isn't it? For all the cribbing we do about the Dubs, where would recent leagues have been without such resuscitating extravaganzas as the Battle of Omagh, The Headbutting Statistician, The Northern Grudge series (Tyrone under lights, Armagh in chilly Croker) and the Battle Royal with Meath? Indeed the last time the National Football League final even boiled over into something approaching a genuine national occasion was the 1993 game and replay between Dublin and Donegal, both of which drew over 50,000.

Those are the big-time punctuations in a competition determinedly small-time, perhaps the only competition in the whole world of sport which shrinks in significance as it progresses. The league is razzmatazz-proof.

Imagine if the final whistle in Parnell Park yesterday had been greeted with fireworks and wads of that paper confetti being cannonballed into the air and Queen blaring all over the tannoy. It would have seemed like a cruel joke designed to underline the pathos of the occasion.

Strange thing, though the skirmishes are ersatz and counterfeit a lot of the time, late league fare is sometimes a good deal more interesting than we give it credit for. It's just not festive, something we as Gaels need in our sport. We like a sense of occasion more than we like an interesting game.

Yesterday's Parnell Park programme was a classic of the genre: interesting without being spectacular, all sense of importance drained from the occasion.

Wexford won the first game in extra time, a twist of excitement not usually expected in a Division Three final. Wexford celebrated as if they had just been liberated after the siege of Leningrad. For this modest repast they gave much thanks and captain Colm Morris invited people to celebrate in Wexford. The hurling community who have just arrived in Division Two themselves but from the other direction may forbear to cheer.

The second game began and after 20 minutes we felt compelled to inquire when the GAA was going to investigate what was causing the gap between Kerry and ordinary mortals. The All-Ireland champions, during that period with several wunderkinder, the Gooch and Paul Galvin looked to be playing a different type of game. In the opening minute Marc Ó Sé made a slaloming 60-yard solo run out of the full-back position that was just a joy to watch. Minutes later Kieran Donaghy delivered a plateful of that old NBA-fetish hang time when he rose for a ball, hovered (I swear) like an angel and delivered the ball into the path of Donncha Walsh (who was introduced as a wonderchild himself against Dublin in Killarney some years ago but has resurfaced only now).

It was the wonderstuff. We watched in awe. Even Darren O'Sullivan's miskick crawled with Gooch-like precision inches away from the flailing form of Barry Gillis for Kerry's second goal to give Kerry a seven-point lead. It was sunny and pleasant and exhibition stuff.

We thought the worse of Derry for a while when they plundered a goal by rampaging manically through the middle of the Kerry defence for Fergal Doherty to finish, but by early in the second half we were grateful for their earnestness and started to see the hallmarks of John McCloskey's training-field work showing through in their play.

Like Donegal last year, Derry finished up as surprised, happy and popular winners, the sort of team the Ulster championship chews up and spits out every year.

We warned them against the ides of May and they said they knew already. We'll watch them come summer, wringing the last little piece of value out of the league, wondering if they can burst out and own Croke Park in summer the way they owned Parnell yesterday.

Not a bad ending, but there was more razzmatazz at the birth.