The Leinster Council meets this morning to determine whether the second replay of this AIB club football final takes place next Sunday or next month. Consequently, it's not yet possible to say whether 1998 saved its worst match of the year until last. But yesterday's lurching around the swamp that once was O'Connor Park, Tullamore, would take some beating.
Neither team was to blame for the fiasco. The players tried to apply their undoubted skills to the awful conditions, but without webbed feet it was impossible. Frustration was always steaming around the edges of the action, and it was surprising, amidst a succession of - albeit often genuine - mistimed challenges, that none of the 35 players suffered what would have been the mixed censure of an early shower.
In the fourth minute of injury-time, Eire Og's Muckle Keating drifted the equalising point just over the bar and it landed on the top of the goal-netting. Afterwards he was to explain that he had been trying to lob Mick Pender, slightly off his line in the Kilmacud goal.
Whatever. His system must have flooded with relief to see the white flag raised given that a 60th minute miss from what by his standards should have been a handy free looked to have doomed the Carlow champions.
Had that been the case it would have been an injustice. Eire Og played the conditions better than Kilmacud and were never led until two minutes from ordinary time when Ray Cosgrove punished the Carlow-men for a foul on Mick Dillon by slotting over the resulting free.
In the end, referee Brian White decided that the pitch was not capable of sustaining a further half-hour and the planned period of extra-time was abandoned. Even if they had been playing on astro-turf, a phosphorescent ball would have been needed given the gloom that had enveloped the ground.
It was another of those eventful days which have been coming thick and fast of late for the referee. Eyebrows were raised at the amount of extra time being played, and Mick Dillon claimed afterwards that Kilmacud had been told before taking their last free that there was a minute-and-a-half left. Six minutes were actually played.
In fairness to Mr White, he could have meant a minute-and-a-half of normal time. But few thought that there had been four minutes of stoppages during the second half.
In the 39th minute, the referee's umpires made one of their now standard interventions to rule out what looked like a valid score against Eire Og - right corner forward Mick O'Keeffe the aggrieved party on this occasion.
During the early exchanges, the Dubliners appeared far more inconvenienced by the saturated conditions. In seasonal, pantomime vein, they slid all over the place and dropped balls or missed them altogether.
By contrast, Eire Og, starting with four different forwards compared to last week (Willie Quinlan was ruled out with injury before the throw-in), moved the ball well, with Jody Morrissey particularly prominent. Their backs were quick and assured when the ball came slithering through, and Kilmacud were restricted to two Cosgrove points, one from a free, in the opening half-hour.
Eire Og full forward Leo Turley enjoyed better fortune this week, although Conor Deegan was again very reliable at the back. Turley scored twice from play in five minutes, both as a direct consequence of defenders falling around in the quagmire. But his team were worth their two-point interval lead, 0-4 to 0-2.
As in the drawn match, Kilmacud's profligacy was marvellous to behold. Again they nearly doubled their opponents' wides total and had a couple of chances for goals denied - sometimes by error, sometimes by conditions and once by a fine John Kearns save.
After the break, Kilmacud began to play with more purpose. Using the slight wind advantage, they unleashed quick ball into their forwards and by the 40th minute had worn down the deficit.
Pat Critchley, the Eire Og manager, made changes and sent on heftier troops to deal with the conditions, and for a while this looked to have steadied things. Hughie Brennan reproduced the impression he had made a week ago, and indeed intensifying it for John O'Callaghan with whom he swapped injury-time smacks in the middle of the field to the apparent indifference of officialdom.
Another replacement, Peter Kingston, edged Eire Og ahead, but in the last 10 minutes John Costello and Cosgrove looked to have nicked it for the Dubliners.
Instead we could all be back in a week, although with the weather halving last week's attendance to 3,500, the Gaiety needn't fear the competition just yet.
Kilmacud Crokes: M Pender; C O'Dwyer, C Deegan, C Cleary (capt); J O'Callaghan, J McGee, R Leahy; J Costello (01), M Leahy; P Ward, M Dillon, C Redmond; R Cosgrove (0-5, four frees), P Burke (0-1), M O'Keeffe. Subs: R Brennan for O'Keeffe (49 mins); P O'Donoghue for Redmond (54 mins).
Eire Og: J Kearns; B Hayden, A Corcoran, J Dooley; J Murphy (capt), P Doyle, A Callinan; J Morrissey, T Nolan; B Carbery, G Ware, K Haughney (0-1); J Hayden (0-1), L Turley (0-3, one free), B Hennessy. Subs: P Kingston (0-1) for Hennessy (36 mins); H Brennan for Nolan (45 mins); A Keating (0-1) for J Hayden (46 mins).
Referee: B White (Wexford).
