Novelty factor dispels gloom of early summer

ON GAELIC GAMES:Tipperary's fairytale comeback in hurling and the overthrow of the Kerry/Tyrone axis as Cork finally delivered completed a memorable championship campaign

THE GAA year always ends well – big crowds and the excitement of All-Irelands being won and lost. It’s easy to forget all the insecurities that flickered throughout the early summer, as the championship took shape.

We had the usual jumpiness at the start of a World Cup summer and apprehensions about attendances, but, by last Sunday, overall crowds were down just slightly, even if the revenue take will be disproportionately reduced because of the increasing take-up of special offers and promotions (for instance, admittance for four kids and an adult into an All-Ireland semi-final for €65).

Any sort of reduction is bad news, and this is the third successive year of marginally falling numbers, but in the economy’s current nuclear winter there could have been worse figures for the year.

One issue that has emerged strongly is the importance of novelty, a commodity impervious to quick fixes. Much of the gloom back in the weeks up to early July had to be taken in the context of perceived predictability in both of the championships.

Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row was seen, not unreasonably, as inevitable. Tipperary’s massive setback in Cork had severely curtailed expectations of the one county believed to be capable of putting it up to the champions. The lengthy and incremental rehabilitation of Tipp was a remarkable feat of team management, as Liam Sheedy and his selectors produced for a second straight year incomparably their best performance in the All-Ireland.

None of this was particularly foreseeable by the first weekend in September let alone back in June. But as the drama of the final whipped up, a significant milestone was reached – a television audience peaking at 1,236,000, the biggest rating ever enjoyed by the hurling final and, so far this year, the most-watched programme of any sort on RTÉ this year.

It wasn’t as vividly obvious, but football’s restrictive practices were nearly as damaging. Two counties, Kerry and Tyrone, had won the previous eight All-Irelands. Cork trailed behind, frequently ranked more highly than the others, but apparently incapable of actually landing the silverware.

Despite their growing favouritism, based partly on their pre-final form in 2009 and partly on a juggernaut NFL campaign, by June Cork looked as bankable as Tipp, their hurling counterparts in the champions-in-waiting chamber, after another disappointing defeat by Kerry, who along with Tyrone would emerge predictably as provincial champions.

Wrecking the buzz even further was the contraction of Dublin’s drawing power in the wake of some abject championship performances that appeared to have completely undermined the progress suggested by the county’s best league campaign in over a decade. Paradoxically, aggregate attendances didn’t suffer too badly as the deposed Leinster champions picked their way through the qualifiers with the frequency of their matches compensating for the comparatively small crowds.

The eruption of competitive energy on the August weekend came as a surprise. Croke Park was electric on the last Saturday in July when the two favourites bit the dust. There was a karma about Kerry’s eclipse by Down in that it was evidence of indiscipline actually hurting a team (just as fouls cost Dublin a place in the All-Ireland) and proof that players’ living on the edge can be risky as well as greatly admired by managers.

Kerry are too clinical beneath all of the football mysticism to have been hugely surprised by the outcome. Missing Paul Galvin and Tomás Ó Sé because of suspension brought to six the number of enforced changes to the team that had lined out for the previous year’s All-Ireland victory.

Something had to give, even if few thought that Down would precipitate the crisis.

James McCartan’s team, however, proved the surprise of the summer, exhibiting the county’s familiar lack of self-effacement despite reaching the quarter-finals for the first time. The now traditional dismissal of Kerry fuelled the most audacious bid for the Sam Maguire in years and, if it all ended with a first All-Ireland final defeat, the fact they finished just a point off the new champions is still slightly stunning.

Dublin sincerely flattered Tyrone in the following match and their claustrophobic hustle combined with the dazzle of Bernard Brogan’s continuing Broadway triumph combined with Tyrone’s 17 wides to end the run of Mickey Harte’s team.

That evening, and even before Kildare’s contender-status demolition of Meath, the whole landscape was transformed by the prospect of unusual champions. Even Cork would be bridging a gap of 20 years.

We thus had the highly unusual situation of four semi-finalists all harbouring valid ambitions to win the All-Ireland and the box-office appeal of that was enough for the GAA to be able nearly to pull back the attendance deficit through the increase in crowds over the last two Sundays in August.

The role of the provincial championships came under scrutiny, as none of the four defeated finalists progressed to the All-Ireland quarter-finals, at which stage every one of the regional champions was eliminated.

But, conversely, this was a season when the value of a provincial title was emphasised.

Roscommon’s achievement in winning a first Connacht title in nine years was particularly notable for a team that had been relegated to Division Four earlier in the year.

Limerick’s latest heartache at the end of a Munster final, Monaghan’s despair in Ulster and, overwhelmingly, the Leinster trauma dealt to Louth showed what a provincial title means to counties unused to success and for whom it is an end in itself.

Not everything went well. Disciplinary issues were still prey to inconsistency and refereeing errors were as conspicuous as they were unwelcome. It’s true to say that controversially awarded or disallowed scores are a comparative rarity or that they – as in the Down-Kildare semi-final – balance themselves out but there’s no way around what happened in the Leinster final.

It’s unusual that such an extraordinary lapse of judgment would take place at the very end of a match and prove decisive, but that’s no consolation to Louth, who watched as a day to live in the memory became an unforgettable injustice.

Despite opposition that owed more to sentimentality than evidence-based argument, the safety measures designed to prevent pitch invasions were ultimately successful and the space which allowed teams to come to terms with victory and defeat – as well as granting players freedom from hordes of “celebrants” descending on them – enhanced the immediate aftermath of the finals.

Allowing for the GAA’s Tea Party movement and its insistence on untrammelled liberty at the expense of others, the general view appears to be that the new arrangement works well, even if aspects of the ceremony might be tweaked.

Finally, Cork deserved their All-Ireland and after all that has befallen them deserve to enjoy it. Is maith an t-anlann an t-ocras.