Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but with some league games it is occasionally the most appropriate form of reportage. Thus this rip-roaring, free-flowing, high-scoring, all singing, all dancing celebration of everything that is good in Gaelic football will live long in the memory of all those who were lucky enough to have seen it.
Cork duly qualified for the National League final in two weeks time and Meath were excused further involvement and permitted to go and tend to their preparations for the championship. The losers most imminent task will be to reflect that it is a long time since three points was a sufficient total to win a knockout game. None of their starting forwards scored yesterday. Fortunately they have the remedy at their disposal and come the summer when Tommy Dowd and Trevor Giles are galloping with fresh legs on parched turf and Nigel Crawford is playing somewhere more comfortable than full forward and Nigel Nestor is playing full stop, well they will be a different prospect. For now they have too many good players feeling their way back and the clear calendar between now and summer will be put to good use.
It is easy (thank goodness) to be dismissive of league fare and to sling phrases like phoney war about the place, yet Cork must take some genuine credit for Meath's sterility yesterday.
It was a poor game but as in the quarter-final against Derry, they defended in a disciplined and organised manner and can be content that they need no more tinkering in that department. They have in fact conceded just one goal in their last four hours of football. If only the full-forward line had kicked even a single point then Larry Tompkins might be whistling while he worked over the next couple of weeks. Cork scored six points yesterday, half of them from play and perhaps most disappointing was the failure to find Mark O'Sullivan with any sort of worthwhile supply. Yesterday, with Darren Fay trailing him obsessively and the supply from the midfield mixing desperation with carelessness, O'Sullivan never got a sniff.
Being an optimist, O'Sullivan will attribute some of his misfortune to the meddlesome weather. He has a point. The pitch was gluey enough to be a gift to defenders and the wind was brisk and erratic. If the first half had been a book we would have put it down before the mid point when Paddy Reynolds claimed the first score from play, breaking the trance-like calm which had descended on the attendance. Reynolds's novel intervention closed the gap established by two Podsie O'Mahony frees and all of a sudden the game was boiling with incident. Philip Clifford took advantage of a communications mix-up in defence and went clattering through only to clip the post with his shot. A couple of minutes later, Joe Kavanagh had a snipe at goal. Mark O'Reilly scooped the ball illegally. Penalty!
Kavanagh clunked the penalty off the crossbar, Ciaran O'Sullivan slanted another free for Cork and without having scored from play his side went to the break clutching a two-point lead. The second half was equally slow to ignite and one's thoughts were wandering sympathetically to the poor soul who would have to produce edited highlights of the game when Jimmy McGuinness splurged with a massive kick which, wind assisted, sailed 50 yards and over the Cork bar. Game on, we thought hopefully.
Of course the game was anything but on. It glowed dimly like a damp log but it gave off no warmth or hope of it. Only the little undercurrent of spite and the adept enthusiasm of the defences kept it interesting for long periods.
At midfield the possession was being doled out about equally between the teams, but very little of it was clean or usable. All too often moves got choked quickly and scampering forwards duly tapered off their runs. Cork return to the league final for the first time in since Kerry beat them in 1997 on their way to the All-Ireland. Dublin and Armagh will hardly harbour similar ambitions but those sort of musings had plenty of time to develop yesterday.
It passed the time, but as Beckett (who produced the original play in which nothing happens, twice) once noted, the time would have passed itself anyway.
Cork: K O'Dwyer; M O'Donovan, S Og O hAilpin, A Lynch; C O'Sullivan (0-1, a free), O Sexton, M Cronin; Michael O'Sullivan, N Murphy; A Dorgan (0-1), J Kavanagh (0-1), P O'Mahony (0-2, frees); P Clifford (capt), Mark O'Sullivan , A O'Regan. Subs: R McCarthy for Clifford (43 mins); D Davis (0-1) for A O'Regan (50 mins); B Walsh for P O'Mahony (60 mins).
Meath: C O'Sullivan; M O'Reilly, D Fay, C Murphy; P Reynolds (0-1), H Traynor, D Curtis; J McGuinness (0-1), J McDermott; R Kealy, J Devine, G Geraghty; R Magee, N Crawford, O Murphy. Subs: T Giles for J Devine (half-time); E Kelly (0-1) for Kealy (half-time); T Dowd for R Magee (50 mins).
Referee: P McEnaney (Monaghan).
