Kevin McStay: John Small hit on Eoghan McLaughlin was a wild and dangerous foul

When your opponent is favourite to win an All-Ireland semi-final there is a reckoning that goes on in your head. Logic assures you that the other team – which has not lost in six years – will probably win. But there is also an amusing law of championship football: as the days tick down, the gap always narrows. The counter-argument grows louder. You find reasons why your crowd might, could, just maybe, somehow – win. So it went for Mayo.

I think that law is in danger of becoming obsolete because there is so much preview material – articles and TV shows and podcasts in which every nook and cranny is explored, removing that illogical narrowing of the gap in the mind. Those conversations are based on form and reason. The old tingling feeling – I just think they are going to do it . . . doesn’t come into it.

Two interesting statistics emerged in pre-match observations. One was that Mayo never scored more than one goal in a game against Dublin in the championship. And they hadn’t kept a clean sheet since 2012. So the supposition was that they would need goals to beat Dublin.

There was no sense of drama in Croke Park at half-time. Nobody - but nobody - foresaw that revolutionary third quarter

That was the prevailing logic. And the first half confirmed the hypothesis that Dublin would have too much. Dublin were producing processed outcomes and Mayo were nowhere. It was sterile, dull stuff. I have watched the game back a few times. It is very hard to analyse what changed between the first and last whistle. Clearly, something of lasting significance occurred. But where did it come from?

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I think it boiled down to the energy and positivity that Mayo generated – increasingly – over the second half. Also, it turned out that Mayo’s objective in that first half was not to concede goals. That commitment to a clean sheet is the only rationale I can apply to their first-half effort, when the defenders stayed one, two metres off their men and gave Ciarán Kilkenny and company oceans of space to kick routine scores.

So at half-time they were six down. And there was a part of me that thought Mayo were close to washing the shovels for the day and heading to the pub. What if Dublin pushed eight, nine clear? Because the other recurring theme was that Mayo were translating their possessions into these wides which drain belief, purpose, energy and everything else. There was no sense of drama in Croke Park at half-time. Nobody – but nobody – foresaw that revolutionary third quarter.

But: the no goal scored for Dublin meant the game wasn't quite dead. And perhaps that six-point gap did not look as foreboding to the Mayo squad as it did to us. In any event, youth took over: that sense of abandon and let's not die wondering. They pushed up on Evan Comerford's kick-out and, led by Enda Hession, carried the ball at Dublin with pace and daring. And very quickly it became apparent that Dublin had stalled. It was like a big articulated truck stuck on the side of the road.

And strangely I thought Mayo played as if all the games – all the defeats – against Dublin had never happened. They were carefree. Here we are! It's a new day! Again, I would apply the energy of youth to that. It is like the child being brought to school on the first day. The mother holds his or her hand but sooner or later, that link is broken: you are on your own now. And at some point it occurred to the likes of Ryan O'Donoghue and Tommy Conroy and Pádraig O'Hora that it was down to them to make this happen. These boys were hunting for work and, most shockingly, enjoying themselves immensely.

There were four major threads in the game. Mayo were outstanding on the Rob Hennelly kick-out: 22 for 24. What a day for the goalkeeper. He was Mayo's salvation here: three huge scores, the last of which was delivered under intolerable pressure. If this turns out to be Mayo's year that kick will enter the folklore. The switch of O'Hora on to Kilkenny was made early and worked well. They still need to work on their turnovers and wides – eight again on Saturday. They made sure they conceded no goals. They ticked a lot of boxes here but not quite all. The shortcomings were masked by their collective energy. And that phenomenal energy is what caused Dublin to disintegrate.

I loved watching Dublin in their pomp. Of late, the process stuff had started to become boring. But the most disappointing part of Saturday was the manner in which they relinquished the crown. I felt they let themselves down badly. It was ugly. Their discipline was shocking and they were fortunate to escape serious sanction. Their composure abandoned them – illuminated by that one-touch game in their own small rectangle which ended up with Davy Byrne spilling possession across his own deadline. They were like an old boxer just praying for the final bell then.

All the eulogising down the years of the hard man and the manliness led to this moment when a young man has been seriously hurt

Dublin had 35 turnovers on Saturday night. That is a number that a Division Three team would amass against a Division One team. Their turnovers skyrocketed as the game went on. The way they bowed out wasn't pretty – pull downs, cowardly fists to the face, feigning injuries and it was sad to see because they were great champions.

The Colm Basquel black card was a marginal call and really hurt them because they were tiring as it was and the remainder had to do more running in a period when Mayo were uncontainable. The four points that Mayo scored in extra-time were wonderfully pieced together and were lit with composure. Again, they came from the new Mayo faces. There was a mood of defiance about Conroy's last score which summed up the night.

Of course, the evening revolved around the hit that John Small made on Eoghan McLaughlin. It was a deeply troubling incident which, I feel, released the skeleton in the cupboard when it comes to GAA machismo.

I fully realised by Saturday night that this was a red-card offence. I wasn't able to be clear on that judgment during the game when I was doing co-commentary for RTÉ. A tackle is a skill. This was a wild and dangerous foul. It obviously should have been a free, but the failure to immediately halt the game to attend to the stricken player was a poor moment for referee Conor Lane and his match officials. When you are doing a co-commentary, technology is usually available to you. You get to have a few more looks at incidents than referees. In real time, from a distance of 70 metres, I called John Small's effort shoulder to shoulder on McLaughlin. It wasn't that.

There is a history of the ‘hospital pass’ in Gaelic football. It’s that loose floating pass which walks you into a waiting defensive player who can see the whole picture and is primed to make a hit. No matter what your size you have to show your bravado. If the guy sees that opportunity, he is expected to exploit that advantage. He has carte blanche to line the receiver up on the hospital pass. If he is way more powerful than you and executes the hit powerfully, the outcome can be bad. Weirdly, it is celebrated in Gaelic football as an act of bravery. It could as easily be construed as an act of cowardice.

If you have played the game you will recognise that this scenario arises a few times in your career. A pass is walking you into danger, you have eyes on the ball and you know you have to go for it. It is like a mini-car crash in its violence. I was concussed twice and hospitalised once as a result of these passes. All the advantage is with the tackler. Therefore, all the responsibility is with him too. He cannot recklessly endanger his opponent. But there is a historical problem here: both parties are expected to collide full on.

A kind of wildness had crept into the Dublin mindset. They went out swinging. There was something shocking about it

Small was always going to decide the outcome in this instance. McLaughlin is a powerful athlete. But John got this catastrophically wrong in terms of timing and his intent. Did he abdicate responsibility to his opponent? In the stadium, I asked a few different people before the start of extra-time about that tackle and the vast majority were not certain about it. RTÉ chose not to show the replays because the pictures were unpleasant. And it was the right thing to do.

Only John Small knows his intention. It would be wrong to assert he deliberately set out to injure the man. It was a split-second incident. But then all sports are composed of split-second incidents. You can be sure he decided: I am going to give this everything. All the eulogising down the years of the hard man and the manliness led to this moment when a young man has been seriously hurt, his face substantially damaged and broken by a challenge which is supposed to be shoulder-to-shoulder.

A short time after McLaughlin was stretchered off, Small routinely decked O’Donoghue off the ball near the Davin Stand end line. It was a nasty needless punch. O’Donoghue was incensed. The moment went unpunished. It drew the picture of a guy slightly out of control – and certainly not wrestling with any moral qualms about what had happened earlier. By then, a kind of wildness had crept into the Dublin mindset. They went out swinging. There was something shocking about it.

Late in extra-time Dublin needed a goal. They were in freefall and in the end out of ideas – and substitutes. It was entirely appropriate that Mayo felled the giant. The on-pitch scenes were special. Colm Boyle was straight into the arms of James Horan – as was Aidan O'Shea: two senior figures on a night of youth. Then the music started and I left the stadium a few inches taller. The Green and Red of Mayo is a powerful chant when it is sung with feeling. It was a tantalising glimpse of what winning an All-Ireland might feel like. But, of course it was not an All-Ireland. It was merely the road towards one.

When I left Croke Park it was nine o'clock and it was dark and cold and I was struggling to get a taxi. A nice shiny white Mercedes pulled up eventually. The driver was a Rossie. From Castlerea. I wanted to talk about Mayo. He just wanted to talk about the Rossies in the under-20 final on Sunday. The great wheel spins. Everything felt possible.