“There won’t be a cow milked in Brisbane tonight,” said Darragh Maloney after the maddest and, possibly, most exhilarating penalty shoot-out in the history of mad and exhilarating penalty shoot-outs.
But one that would only have been enjoyable if you didn’t have a drop of Australian or French blood, otherwise you’d have been in need of therapy after the wondrous spectacle.
The only way, really, to sum up Australia’s elation over their Matildas, somehow, prevailing over France is to quote their wheelchair tennis champion Dylan Alcott.
He posted a video of himself celebrating Cortnee Vine’s winning kick. “My god,” he said, “that was the closest I’ve ever been to standing up.”
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He came mighty close too, like the pure ecstasy of the moment almost cured him of his affliction.
Darragh and Stephen Kelly spoke for us.
Darragh: “Oh my word, I have never, EVER seen anything like this!”
Stephen: “It’s utter madness!”
Darragh: “You’re never going to see anything like that again!”
Stephen: “That was off the charts … ridiculous stuff!”
Next time someone tells you that women’s sport is boring, point them to the weekend just gone and give them a rattle. Mother of God, it was divine.
The bovine residents of Naul will probably go unmilked too for a day or three after Carla Rowe captained Dublin to their All Ireland triumph over Kerry.
Until last year, she’d known nothing but winding up her season by playing in an All-Ireland final, but then Donegal ousted her and team-mates at the 2022 quarter-final stage. Sensible people would have chosen to walk away, a box-full of medals plenty, but Rowe and her elder comrades displayed no sense at all and came back all over again.
So, when it got to full-time on Sunday, Rowe celebrated like she’d never won an All-Ireland medal before. When persistent winners experience losing for the first time, they have a habit of using those defeats to turn them in to triumph-hungry beasts. (See the boy Dubs a couple of weeks back).
Speaking of which. “Kerry put it up to us, but we were a different beast today,” said player of the match Hannah Tyrrell to TG4, her first-half performance one for the ages. In a kind of a “she shoots, she scores” sort of way.
“Carla? Where does this stand?”
“It’s one of the sweetest,” she said, confirming that the occasional loss is a motivational factor like no other.
Those teams hoping to end Manchester City’s Premier League reign aren’t short of motivation themselves, even if the chances of them calling a halt to their supremacy are close enough to less than zero.
Even less likely is Roy Keane being chirpy through the season. “Football is supposed to be fun,” said Peter Drury, successor to the retired Martin Tyler as Sky Sports chief commentator. “We’re here to smile, we’re here because it’s an escape - if there’s one thing I hate in football, it’s anger. I’ll be telling that to Roy Keane.”
How angry was Roy come Sunday? Very. But that has as much to do with Daniel Sturridge singing beside him as it did with the defending in the Chelsea v Liverpool game. Micah Richards thought it was gas, Roy was fuming, and anyone who doesn’t enjoy a fuming Roy is, frankly a dry arse.
The highlight of the opening weekend of the Premier League? Evan Ferguson scoring, of course. Micah and Alan Shearer swooned over him on Match of the Day, “I love everything about him,” said Alan, who knows a thing or two about useful goal-scoring persons.
Gary Lineker, meanwhile, suggested Spurs sign Ferguson as a replacement for Harry Kane, so enamoured is he with the young fella.
Brighton could have done without that suggestion. If they can hold on to the fella, the cows in east Sussex will go severely unmilked.
