I won’t be at Sunday’s All-Ireland final. Although there is hurling in my club, Clontibret, I’ve never played, but I love watching it – the drama and the pace make it incredibly exciting.
It’s hard not to be aware of the scramble for tickets and I don’t think it would be fair to take up one at the expense of Cork or Tipperary supporters. I went to one All-Ireland final, but more semi-finals because you’d be fit to get tickets for those.
[ All-Ireland hurling final: Throw-in time, where to watch, story so far ]
I don’t see huge connections with football, but hurling is a fantastic game for the spectator. And the changes in tactics over the years, from Kilkenny’s more direct approach to Limerick playing through the lines, has been fascinating.
The game is different, but the GAA is the same. Last year I was away in Doonbeg on holiday and watched the Clare-Cork final on television in a pub. It is football territory but still Co Clare and they had the flags out all around. You get a sense of how insane it can be when a county has a team in the All-Ireland.
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I was at the 2008 final, standing on the Hill when Kilkenny beat Waterford. Even before the throw-in there was mayhem and players knocking the helmets off each other. I remember Tommy Walsh in the thick of things.
It turned into a rout. I’m not sure an All-Ireland of any sort was won so remorselessly. My casual memories are of Kilkenny with two wides all day and Waterford not scoring from play until the second half.
The atmosphere was unbelievable. Waterford had arrived, naturally full of hope, but they were blown out of it. There was no let-up by Kilkenny – they just kept doing their job and half the time it looked like it didn’t matter that there was an opposition on the pitch with them.
You would feel sorry for a team that gets to a first All-Ireland in years and ends up almost as spectators – except that they were in the final in the first place.
The bitterest regret for me was that Monaghan didn’t reach an All-Ireland final during my career. The county reached one so long ago that to have even been born at the time would make you nearly 100.
In 2018, we lost the semi-final by a point to Tyrone in a match we should have won. That year’s final would have been against Dublin. They were three-in-a-row champions at that point and it would have been great to get a cut at them in an All-Ireland final.
Anyway, it’s irrelevant because we didn’t get there. You’d always go to the final, number one because you’re a Gaelic football fan and, two, because the All-Ireland final is for me the most special date in the sporting calendar.
Some days are more difficult than others, when you feel as if you could have been there and maybe had opportunities to be there – could we have done anything differently?
All-Ireland final day is just something that hits differently: the whole build-up and the atmosphere around it.
When you’re in Croke Park an hour or two beforehand and people are starting to stream in and the colour is filling out the stadium and music is being played, there is a feeling this is exactly where you want to be. Ideally, of course, you want to be in it, but just being there is something unique.
I do have to say that I believe the third Sunday in September added to the occasion and brought something a bit different to getting ready for the All-Ireland final.
There was a great build-up in the counties with everything from cars to cows being painted and the whole country getting ready for it and the atmosphere building to a fever pitch.
Now, it’s all just a wee bit more rushed. The hurling final is in a few days and we’re still talking about football semi-finals. Next week there’ll be new hurling champions as the football build-up is trying to get started – even though for anyone that’s in it it’s still a final to be won.
For those who aren’t there, the ones feeling it most are the teams who lost the semi-finals.
At the weekend, the last two teams to lose before the final made their exits. There was consolation of sorts, if you can call it that. Both Tyrone and Meath beat one of the finalists. Indeed, those defeats marked a turning point for Donegal and especially Kerry.
Tyrone will probably feel it more. It was a different game to the quarter-final when Kerry had that 14-0 period because Armagh didn’t really register any chances to respond. They couldn’t because they were pinned in and unable to get out.
Tyrone did get out and create chances, even as they were conceding those eight points in the second half. They just couldn’t get the scores on the board. There were a couple of bad wides: Mark Bradley missed one, Michael McKernan came on and missed one, Peter Harte came on and missed one.
You could really just see the air being let out of the tyres with every chance Tyrone missed. You could hear the groan of the crowd and you could just sense the unease in the team.
I would suspect Tyrone will probably have regrets over Saturday’s game.
Meath, probably not as much. They’ll be disappointed with getting beaten so comfortably, but overall I think they will look back on that year and be reasonably happy, even if slightly frustrated that they didn’t do themselves justice in the semi-final.
If they and Tyrone can face thinking about next year, maybe they’ll look at how the counties who beat them had lost semi-finals themselves 12 months ago.
