It must have seemed like the gates of hell had swung open at the Canal End for the last few minutes of our All-Ireland semi-final with Mayo in 2021.
ll the conditions for bedlam were there: high stakes, pressure moment, competitive animals, familiarity, contempt.
Mayo were awarded that ’45 that Robbie Hennelly skewed wide. Stay of execution. Exhale. Next ball.
…or not.
Conor Lane, apparently on advice of one of his sideline officials, orders a retake. Mayo had 16 players on the pitch when Hennelly took the kick.
The man who was supposed to come off, Stephen Coen, was nowhere near the play. He was completely incidental.
But he was spotted. And Lane made the right call, even though it effectively amounted to us being penalised for Mayo breaking the rule.
Naturally, Hennelly nailed the retake. Extra-time. We were a busted flush.
And there, boys and girls, ended our golden run.
Now, there was nothing untoward in it from Mayo. No chicanery or sleight of hand.
But a match regulation wasn’t being adhered to. The referee spotted it and ordered a retake.
Any of this sounding familiar?
What happened last Sunday in Croke Park was an officiating error. Plain and simple. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. It happened last Sunday. It will happen again.
Glen’s ’45 should never have been allowed to be taken.
Once it was, the referee then should have called it back, assuming he, or his man on the line, knew Kilmacud hadn’t taken their man off.
Watty Graham’s appeal genuinely surprised me. I was a guest of theirs a couple of years ago and had a great night in their clubhouse.
They’re a tight club with a pulsing sense of community you feel the moment you drive in the gates.
But what exactly they’re trying to achieve here is beyond me?
As a player, you’d be embarrassed to play that game again after losing the first day. Win, and it’s the most tainted medal you’ll ever own. Lose and you can double the embarrassment.
Admittedly, GAA legislation flies mostly over my head.
But I do know what everyone else knows; that a countless number of rules are broken in every game without match officials picking up on it.
Is there a category of breaches that warrant a replay and others that don’t?
Let’s call a spade a spade here.
Much of the commentary this week has been coloured by a dislike of Kilmacud, or big Dublin clubs, or maybe even just Dublin.
This has nothing to do with Kilmacud’s size, the same way it has nothing to do with Shane Walsh.
Any way you look at it now, Croke Park should have acted more quickly and decisively because the longer it goes on, the messier it gets.
They have a fair a job on their hands untangling the knots knowing whatever course of action they take is going to p**s a lot of people off.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think Crokes will play another final, regardless of what the GAA say or the consequences of a no-show. I also think they’d be well within their rights.
But those who have tried to paint this as the Dublin ‘superclub’ versus the small rural club this week succeeded only in exposing their own prejudices.
At least be honest about it.
*****
I used to think Jonny Cooper was a bit of a lick-a**e. A teacher’s pet.
Always saying the right things. Always doing his homework.
It all seemed a bit showy. A bit affected.
Looking back now, that just shows that the culture in the Dublin dressing-room, our collective behaviours, weren’t quite right yet.
Jonny was just ahead of the curve. As quickly as that Dublin dressing-room changed into a high-performance environment, Jonny was miles out in front, waiting at the finish line to greet the converts.
By the end, we were all like Jonny. We were all saying the right things, all looking for extra homework.
That’s what real leadership is.
So we’ll miss Jonny and we’ll miss Michael Murphy and we’ll miss Lee Keegan. David Moran and David Tubridy too.
That’s a lot of personality, a lot of leadership, gone from our inter-county pitches this year. Sport moves on but they’re the sort of legacies that endure.
I marked Murphy a couple of times. He was the backbone and the heartbeat and the brain of that Donegal team, all wrapped up in one hulking physique.
People have argued since the Stone Age whether he’s a better target man or a midfielder but the thing that they might not appreciate is how he controlled the tempo of that team.
Simple things. He’d come out and pop off a couple of handpasses and slow the play down, link it up, and the rest of the Donegal team took their cue.
He was an orchestral conductor. A quarterback. He was also a horrendous tackler. Brutal. His technique was woeful. But even his fouls had value.
They’d be in the right areas of the pitch. He’d get four or five personal fouls without getting a yellow card but he’d slow down your transition, stop a counter-attack at source.
Keegan is an interesting one.
Hand on heart, I admired him hugely. For the way he played. That rare combination of a ferocious one-on-one defender and an explosive attacker.
He’s a top bloke as well. Very likeable. Not all the Dublin players of that era got on with all the Mayo players, but you couldn’t dislike Keegan.
I can only imagine what an influence he had on that dressing-room, not only by being better than everyone else at practically everything in training, but in simply being so positive all the time. People like that rub off you.
Now, when he got on the pitch, he was ruthless. The GPS he threw at Dean Rock, some of the stuff he pulled trying to stop Diarmuid Connolly – it went beyond the line. But I respected that because I played like that too.
There aren’t many players who had demonstrated leadership with such big plays in big games over the time I’ve been watching football.
Guys like that simply stop. They don’t fade away.
