Breaks make little difference in competitive All-Ireland series
The slight inequality at the heart of the All-Ireland football group stages does not appear to have had a major impact at the weekend. Eight teams started this phase of the championship on the weekend of May 17th/18th and then had a two-week break.
They faced opposition who had enjoyed only a one-week interval between their first and second engagements. Only one team, though, managed to harness the time off to overturn a defeat on the opening weekend – Mayo, who won in Omagh on Saturday having lost their first fixture to Cavan.
In the now three-year history of the round-robin structure, despite the apparent advantage, only two other teams have in fact managed to lose their first match and use the break to bounce back and win: Kerry in 2023, losing to Mayo and then beating Cork and Tyrone, losing to Galway but recovering to defeat Donegal.
All-Ireland champions Armagh have navigated the group stages successfully in each of the three years, including this season and have topped the group again, this time with a week in hand. Manager Kieran McGeeney believes that with proper preseason training, week-on-week matches shouldn’t be a problem.
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“I don’t think it’s too much. Sometimes when you get the extra time in a game and you can be out the following week, that’s a lot because you’re basically playing two games in that one weekend. In general, sometimes you fall foul of it, sometimes you don’t.
“I do think the system we have works well. We can’t expect every game to be a clinker.
“But I think what we’ve got is good. In our sport, we have to respect the club level as well. At the minute, we seem to have that, although most of the leagues are going on at the minute without a lot of the county players, they’re normally back in for the tail end of the league.”
McGeeney, who was vocal in supporting the round-robin format, which will change next year again expressed satisfaction with it.
“I don’t know if we need to mess with it that much. I think we’ve done enough of that. I know it changes again next year, but the cadence is pretty good.” – Seán Moran
Davitt Neary gets Mayo fans out of their seats
Paddy Durcan was the obvious Man of the Match for Mayo on Saturday night against Tyrone. Making his first championship start since they faced Roscommon in April 2024, Durcan scored three points from play and brought every bit of that familiar Paddy Durcan urgency that Mayo have been missing.
But for all of Durcan’s qualities, it was the display of 22-year-old Davitt Neary off the bench that really got the small band of Mayo diehards in Omagh off their seats. Neary came in off the bench on 52 minutes and proceeded to tear the place to shreds. He only touched the ball half a dozen times after Tyrone had brought the eight-point gap back to a point but each was an event in itself.
First, Neary nipped in front of Shea O’Hare at a Tyrone kickout, drawing a free which he took immediately to put Durcan away for a score. Two minutes later, he ran at O’Hare again and drew another free – this time O’Hare got a yellow card and Ryan O’Donoghue iced the free. Next, he tracked O’Hare down the wing, dived on his boot for a block and Mayo got the turnover. To cap it all off, he zipped inside three Tyrone defenders on 63 minutes to draw the penalty that O’Donoghue buried to see Mayo out the gap.
It’s a bit of a cliche that Mayo are their best Mayo selves when the needle is in the red and the blood is up. But that doesn’t make it any less true. And nothing gets them into that state more reliably than a young buck saying to hell with it all and going hell for leather at the opposition.
Donegal will have a plan for Neary and it’s not likely to be dainty. But it will be fascinating to see what he can bring in their crunch encounter in a fortnight. He won’t die wondering, we can be sure of that. – Malachy Clerkin
No home comforts for All-Ireland teams
Perhaps it’s no harm the last round of All-Ireland senior football championship group games will take place at neutral venues, because there has been very little benefit to playing at home in recent weeks.
Of the 16 round-robin games so far, only five were won by the home team. There were nine away wins and two draws. The home victors were Kerry (v Roscommon), Meath (v Cork), Armagh (v Derry), Monaghan (v Clare), Down (v Louth).
Indeed, of the eight games over the weekend only two were won by the home team – Monaghan and Down.
This really is one of those seasons where you can manipulate any stat to argue whatever point takes your fancy, but it is clear that home advantage is only an advantage when the competing teams are at a similar level. Donegal hammered Cavan by 19 points in Breffni Park on Sunday.
“Well, it should be strange,” said Jim McGuinness when asked about the pattern of away victories. “But I suppose it all depends on the fixtures and who’s playing who and everything else.”
In other words, a Division One teams should still beat a Division Two team. And so on. The last round of games will be played in neutral venues. The better team should win so, yes? – Gordon Manning
Kerry and Cork managers in agreement about new rule
There were suitably contrasting emotions between the Kerry and Cork managers after their latest championship clash Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Kerry’s ultimately handsome victory, 1-28 to 0-20, puts them on course to make the quarter-finals. They face Meath in their last game, while Cork must battle it out against Roscommon to survive.
However, Jack O’Connor and John Cleary were in absolute agreement on one thing. Tipperary referee Derek O’Mahony repeatedly penalised both teams for situations where a player who caught a kickout mark was challenged within four metres of the position from where the mark was made, then chose to play on immediately.
Under the new rules, this results in a penalty awarded 50m more advantageous than the place of the original mark, up to the opponents’ 13m line.
Critically, the player taking the free may choose to take the free from outside the 40m arc, which is worth two points (though the application of this rule would otherwise result in a free from inside the 40m arc).
Kerry took advantage of this more than Cork in terms of two-pointed frees, but O’Connor was adamant the rule needs to be reviewed again.
“This was never what the rule was brought in for,” said the Kerry manager. “They are going to have to tidy this up. Half the time the referee blows the whistle and neither team knows who the free is for.
“How are you supposed to get out of the way if you think the free is for you? This is something that will have to be addressed. It has gone to ridiculous proportions, the ball must have been moved forward by the referee over 10 times today ... A fellah contesting the ball at midfield can’t just disappear.”
The Cork manager agreed on the contradictory nature of the rule.
“What are they supposed to do? Not go for it?”, said Cleary. “It was on both sides, but I thought we were hit particularly hard on it after half-time. The ball going out the wing, Kerry guy caught it, fellah came down, just stood there because his momentum took him into the player, completely unintentional.
“Surely it has to be intentional. If the player is going for the ball with the intent of trying to win it, and his momentum takes him there, surely the referee can see if it is intentional.”
O’Connor had other things to be satisfied about, David Clifford hitting 1-8, including two two-pointers, although Barry Dan O’Sullivan and Paudie Clifford didn’t make it to half-time due to injuries. Paul Geaney didn’t come out for the second half, and Diarmuid O’Connor didn’t make the match day squad.
But his biggest grievance was on the player challenge in the kickout mark, and he’s certainly not alone in thinking that needs to be looked at again. – Ian O’Riordan
Kilkenny’s underage performances are a concern
The problem for Kilkenny is not so much that they lost another age-grade All-Ireland final at the weekend; the issue is the throughput of talent to the senior squad. Their heavy defeat to a superb Tipperary team on Saturday means that Kilkenny have now won just one All-Ireland in that grade in the last 17 years and it is over a decade since they won their last minor All-Ireland.
That minor victory over Limerick in 2014 showed once again that it is not necessary to win All-Irelands at these grades as long as some talent is harvested. From that Kilkenny squad, though, only Tommy Walsh and Billy Ryan have had extended careers on the senior team, while a handful of others came and went. In contrast, the Limerick team they beat, produced Cian Lynch, Sean Finn, Barry Nash, Seamus Flanagan, Peter Casey, Tom Morrissey and a handful of others who won senior All-Irelands as squad players.
When Kilkenny beat Limerick to win the under-20 All-Ireland in 2022, it didn’t look like a team of stars, and so it has proved. Half a dozen of them have had some exposure at senior level since, none more than Billy Drennan, who is further now from being a championship starter than he was two years ago. From that Limerick group, however, Adam English, Shane O’Brien and Colin Coughlan have all broken through, while Cathal O’Neill would have played in that final if he hadn’t already appeared in the senior championship. That rule has since been changed.
Of the Tipp team on Saturday, Darragh McCarthy, Sam O’Farrell and Óisin O’Donoghue have already played senior championship with three or four others surely on that path. On the Kilkenny team, though, it didn’t look like they had players who will be ready for senior championship any day soon. That’s the worry. – Denis Walsh
