Sporting stage (nearly) a boy-free zone as women enjoy the spotlight

TV VIEW:"IT'S BEEN a long road, lads," said Cork captain Amy O'Shea after she raised the Brendan Martin Cup in Croke Park yesterday, and that was about the only sporting telly look-in of note that the lads got all week.

Between the junior, intermediate and senior All-Ireland football finals, that golfing tussle between Europe and the United States up the road, not to mention the stars of the week – those women who so spectacularly and unforgettably made up the crowd for Fenerbahce’s game against Manisaspor – it was nigh on a boy-free zone.

Yes, there was a brief interlude for that crack-of-dawn rugby World Cup skirmish between Ireland and Russia, but even the panel stopped short of trying to persuade the viewers it would have them all a-tingle. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” Conor O’Shea concluded after Ireland scraped home 62-12.

Back at Killeen Castle the contest was a little tighter, although yesterday morning Europe took a 9-8 lead without raising a putter in anger, an injured wrist prompting Cristie Kerr to withdraw. Sky’s cameras, needless to say, were there when she made the decision, her tears threatening to leave the course waterlogged.

“Personally, if I’d a broken leg I’d still drag myself out there,” said the legend that is Laura Davies when asked to offer Cristie some sympathy. And you got the feeling she wasn’t kidding, the image of her caddie holding her crutches while she Exocet-missiled the ball off the tee entirely conceivable

With that some beer-wielding men in lederhosen ambled by, a sight, you’d have to assume, not often witnessed by the residents of Co Meath. But that’s the Solheim Cup for you, it brought all kinds of wondrous benefits to the area, not least loot.

And to top it all, Europe won. “Their depth was deep,” said American golfer Laura Diaz, a Sky pundit for the event, when asked to account for her country’s defeat.

If the heavens hadn’t been kind for much of the day, they came up trumps during the closing ceremony, that sunset over the castle worth half a gazillion Bord Fáilte ads. Crikey, it screamed “discover Ireland”. Very lovely. A good week.

The Americans can take inspiration from Cork as they look ahead to Colorado 2013. “Walking in to the dressingroom last year, it was like being at a funeral, everyone was devastated, it felt like the end for us,” O’Shea told TG4 yesterday when she recalled last year’s quarter-final defeat to Tyrone.

You have, of course, two options at a time like that: give up, or come back with so much fire in your belly you’ll leave only scorched championship earth behind you. Amy and her colleagues chose the latter course, and there she was, raising Brendan Martin.

“How special is it winning your sixth All-Ireland title,” TG4’s Gráinne McElwain asked manager Eamon Ryan after his county’s triumph over Monaghan.

“Arra,” he said, “it’s just the same as winning any other one – you just like to win.”

Ryan, it should be noted, just agreed to “help out” with the team eight years ago. And now he can hardly get in his front door for all the gongs he’s stacked up. An amazing man, an amazing team. And anyone who calls them “Rebelettes” deserves to be Exocet-missiled down a fairway by a Laura Davies with two unbroken legs.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s intermediate and junior finals both ended in draws, Wicklow’s juniors getting a late equaliser – courtesy of Laura Hogan – against New York. Wicklow v New York? How excellent is that? And you had to love that “Garcia” (Jessica) name appearing on the New York team-sheet. The GAA is, truly, something else.

Cavan and Westmeath will have to do it all over again too after the Ulster side battled back from three points down in the final six minutes.

The rather outstanding Cavan captain Aisling Doonan was the player of the match, scoring six of her county’s 11 points, but there was no consoling her at full-time. “I did some stupid things during the game,” she told TG4, stopping just short of beating herself up.

But then she revealed the chief source of her upset. “My heart goes out to Bríd Boylan, I’m gutted that we couldn’t win for her – they’re on about fixing the replay for her wedding day.”

Yikes. That’s beyond unfortunate. But life is full of tough decisions, it’s just a question of getting your priorities right. The wedding, surely, can be rescheduled?