The changes in Gaelic football this season didn’t only come with the new rules, or innovations, at play.
For those watching on television, the diamond-patterned turf in Croke Park proved a distraction that took a bit of getting used to, although Joanne Cantwell on RTÉ One assured us the view from up high was quite different from that which the players would encounter at field level.
Still, for those of us sitting on our sofas, not expecting an episode of Landscape Artist of the Year, it took a bit of getting used to, and that was only in the parade when Donegal for some reason decided enough was enough of marching behind the Artane Boys Band and took themselves away from the formalities of it all.
Darragh Maloney referred to Donegal’s abrupt departure from the parade as part of the “mind games” in the psychological warfare that goes on between teams at All-Ireland finals. Kerry, though, stuck to the old ways and stayed true to tradition in marching behind the band until the death.
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“There’s greatness in their DNA,” Sarah Mulkerrins over on BBC 2 Northern Ireland had told us upon Kerry’s arrival on to the pitch ahead of the parade, while the Beeb’s match commentator Thomas Niblock in his build-up essay had talked of how the players from Donegal and Kerry came from counties where football “isn’t just played, it’s inherited”.
Both RTÉ and BBC have evolved their prematch coverage of All-Irelands and their use of a corner of the now diamond-patterned pitch near the Nally Stand had Joanne and Sarah as their respective main presenters, each knowledgeable and bringing a mix of pertinent questions of their punditry teams with a little humour too for a match where there was a common consensus that the new rules had, as Philly McMahon put it, “reinvigorated everybody”.
In the build-up to the game, the BBC cameras brought us high into the premium seats where a number of award-winning actors – among them Douglas Henshall, Martin Compston and Chaneil Kular, who are all starring in The Revenge Club, a new thriller being filmed on locations in Ireland – were among the station’s guests.
“I cannot believe I’ve missed [Gaelic football] my whole life,” remarked Henshall (of Shetland fame) with Compston (you know him from Line of Duty) marvelling at the lack of segregation among the supporters, which he described as “mind-blowing”.
The RTÉ lads, meanwhile, were hardly building us up for a game of the century or anything like that, with Peter Canavan being “sceptical about a free-flowing game”, while Tomás Ó Sé added: “I don’t think it’s going to be a classic.”
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So much for all of us with our popcorn and cups of tea settling in for a game where we wanted free-flowing football and drama, and hoping someone somewhere had a bit of revenge to add to the mix.
By half-time in a game of, yep, free-flowing football dominated by Kerry, the BBC’s Niblock seemed to tip his cap to what he’d seen from Kerry and especially to Kerry’s chosen one. “What do you say about genius?” he asked of DC, although the same could have been said about Paudie – whose energy levels should be harnessed for the national grid – and others as the game seemed all but done for.
Hold your horses, or something like that, seemed to be the message coming from pitchside down below where none other than former Dublin manager Jim Gavin – the head of the Football Review Committee – had joined the BBC analysts. “Half-time is only a break in play, I think this is far from over,” said Gavin.
Jim was right until he was wrong. Donegal’s fightback seemed to briefly hold out the prospect for a comeback akin to Tipperary’s against Cork in the hurling but that never happened, and Kerry did what Kerry usually do when the Sam Maguire is within touching distance.
“It’s amazing to see Kerry so excited about winning an All-Ireland,” remarked Mickey Harte on the Beeb, to which Niblock responded by observing – after so many pundits had foreseen a Donegal win – of Kerry that, “the hurt, the anger, whether it is manufactured, a team can feed off it.”
Indeed, over on RTÉ, Damian Lawlor had done what no Donegal defender had managed and only gone and nabbed Paudie Clifford, who seemed more charged up than he had been in his terrific performance throughout where he seemed to cover every blade of the diamond-patterned turf.
Paudie didn’t mince his words either in his chat with Lawlor. “We did feel disrespected, being called a one-man team,” he said, with all the assurance of a big brother who knew the bigger picture. It’s in their DNA, for sure.
