NFL Finals:IT TOOK an Icelandic volcano to remind us that nature humbles us. We won't forget again. It rained in Croke Park yesterday. After just a couple of weeks of sunshine the rain was so novel the grass gave off that distinctively dusty summer scent you get when water falls on to parched earth. Which was nice because much of the football stank.
Cork and Mayo will argue there are many things on the minds of teams playing in National League Division One finals and being entertaining isn’t one of those things. Cork prevailed handily to win their sixth League title by a margin of 1-17 to 0-12.
Mayo went home, beaten in another national final, the only real pain this time being they looked dead and buried after 20 minutes or so.
Both sides played as if their minds are already on the summer. Cork have enough good players at present that they could field a couple of teams and, as such, missing a couple of household names scarcely impacted on them at all.
Donncha O’Connor had a lot to do with Mayo’s demise and he got most of his work done in the first half when he augmented a couple of frees with three points from play.
Cork went in to their tea four points ahead but were worth a lead double that size if you didn’t take into account some pretty harum-scarum stuff in their full-back line when Aidan O’Shea fisted against the crossbar and Mark Ronaldson blasted wide from close range in the space of a couple of minutes.
A minute or so later O’Shea was blocked by Jamie O’Sullivan and the ball went to the other end where O’Connor popped it over and that was pretty much that. From then on scores got the sort of perfunctory round of applause afforded a cricketer batting a single in a minor village match as the sun is setting and the mind is wandering. The GAA pleaded with people to stay off the pitch when the game ended. Really, it wasn’t going to be a problem.
If there were any western romantics still dreaming of the possibility of a late comeback, they came to with seven minutes left. Ciarán Sheehan, who looks to be the real deal for Cork, fed Daniel Goulding perfectly and the latter stuck the ball past Dave Clarke in the Mayo net. Fin.
If the game which topped the weekend’s bill at Croke Park was the least interesting of the four it was because the protagonists have the most on their minds when it comes to summer. Yet the Division Two finalists Down and Armagh, though both still in transition, would argue they have relatively serious ambitions themselves this summer, a journey which starts in just three weeks for Armagh when they visit Derry.
Down, having gone through the regular league season unbeaten, were marginal favourites and the double blade of the Clarke brothers, Marty and John, is set to back up Benny Coulter. As it happens, Down and the rest of us forgot about Steven McDonnell and just how much he loves Croke Park. On the corresponding day five years ago he was scoring 10 points and captaining Armagh to a Division One title over Wexford.
From his score after just 14 seconds to the final whistle, McDonnell was the class act on the field, scoring six points and causing panic every time he got the ball. When he spoke afterwards, as Armagh captain, about the couple of years in which Armagh have been away from Croke Park, it was as a great actor denied a suitable stage.
Down will be relatively nonplussed themselves, however, by this turn of events. Although the game had more cut and thrust to it than the Division One decider Down were missing Ambrose Rogers, who literally and figuratively has been huge for them throughout the spring. And they only got to introduce Dan Gordon late in the game, while Aidan Carr is still coming back from injury.
Down meet Donegal in the first round proper of the Ulster Championship.
Saturday’s games produced wins for Sligo over Antrim in the Division Three decider and for Limerick over Waterford in Division Four. And so the leagues vanish like the seconds removing themselves from a boxing ring before the business starts for real.
Division One
Cork 1-17 Mayo 0-12
Division Two
Armagh0-17 Down 1-12
Division Three
Sligo 0-19 Antrim 1-11
Division Four
Limerick 1-16 Waterford 1-14
