Gerry Thornley
Six Nations: France v Ireland
Paris, March 15th
Whatever else, you-know-who and Ireland will always have Paris. And not just in 2000, but in 2015 as well. You couldn’t have scripted it really. Brian O’Driscoll’s last game ever in Irish green, St Patrick’s weekend, the climactic weekend of the Six Nations and Ireland had assiduously played themselves into a position where they were within one win of the championship with the final game.
There had only been one title since 1995, namely the O’Driscoll-captained 2009 Grand Slam. One title was a paltry return for Ireland’s greatest ever player, not to mention possibly their greatest forward, Paul O’Connell, and a golden generation.
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O’Driscoll had launched his career with that baggy-shirted hat-trick in 2000 but, everywhere you went, French people were wishing Irish fans well, and saying how the sight of O’Driscoll crowning his career in Paris would be fitting – and would also deny England the title.
Perhaps they were fed up with France’s three desultory performances beforehand, but on this night, they turned up, and how. Johnny Sexton appeared to be steering Ireland to the win and the title, with two of Ireland’s three tries to build a 22-13 lead, but a Dimitri Szarzewski try prompted a fraught finale.
Jean-Marc Doussain missed a sitter, Vincent Debaty was forced into a forward pass for Damien Choully thanks to Dave Kearney rushing off his line and then Steve Walsh fleetingly seemed to flick his hand out when the French scrum steamrollered forward but thankfully the ball emerged and Chris Henry and Devin Toner executed the decisive choke tackle.
Ireland were champions alright and the lucky number could attack the night before riding off into the sunset.
There are worse places in Europe to be crowned champions of the continent.
Ken Early
World Cup
Brazil, June-July
Everyone knows the highlight of the 2014 World Cup was Brazil losing 7-1 to Germany in Belo Horizonte, but at a six-month remove the memories of the games have faded and a collage of individual moments remains.
Neymar’s brilliant shot in the opening game under the steep sharp-angled stands of the big white stadium in Sao Paulo; van Persie’s header and Robben’s sprints; Müller’s ceaseless hustling; Messi’s lurking with intent that gradually subsided into lethargy.
Then there was the two near-namesakes who incarnated their countries’ World Cup stories – David Luiz, who knocked out Colombia with a cannonball free kick and then suffered that historic meltdown against Germany in the next game; Luis Suarez, who nearly ripped Joe Hart’s net off the posts to rescue Uruguay’s hopes of qualification, and then was sent home for biting Giorgio Chiellini in the very next game.
More than any of the football you remember the country itself – the Amazon and its ancient forest, the sunny north-east and its miles of quietly shark-infested beaches, beach bars in Fortaleza, moqueca in Salvador, carnival and floods in Recife, the teeming sprawl of Sao Paulo, the ruined glamour of Rio, the most casual airport security and the most terrifying street cops in the world, the hysterical patriotism and emotional frenzy of the Brazilian supporters, their horror and fury as Germany went 7-0 up, and, later that night, the huge crowds of Brazilians drinking and laughing in the centre of Belo Horizonte, as if to remind you that none of it had really mattered.
Philip Reid
British Open
Hoylake, July 20th
The huge grandstand wrapped around the 18th hole on the famed Royal Liverpool links at Hoylake was a fitting amphitheatre for another moment in sporting history.
“Mum, this one’s for you,” said Rory McIlroy to his teary-eyed mother, Rosie, as the Northern Irishman accepted the Claret Jug, the trophy awarded to the Champion Golfer of the Year.
McIlroy’s win – a first British Open and the third leg of a career Grand Slam, to go with his US Open and US PGA successes – was fashioned on the Dee estuary with all of the assuredness of someone aware that each step took him to his destiny.
His coronation as the British Open champion had seemed inevitable, from the time he stood on the first tee for the final round with a six shot advantage. The journey to victory was far from straight-forward, with speed bumps thrown in his way.
There was a heckler, eventually escorted from the course; and there was Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard once upon a time known as “El Nino” who had grown into a man without ever savouring a Major success; and there was the new kid on the block, the American Rickie Fowler.
When all was done and dusted, though, it was McIlroy who – in taking a leaf out of Tiger Woods’s book and making winning rather than the manner of it the most important factor – rose the old Claret Jug above his head.
He won by two shots from Garcia and Fowler, yet it was more than that. McIlroy had shown everyone that he was golf’s new dominant player, the main man.
Brian O’Connor
Champions Day
Leopardstown/Curragh, September 13-14th
A digital, global, on-screen future means actual attendance figures may be an inaccurate and ineffective measure of a sport’s wellbeing but a lot of racing’s new ‘Champions Weekend’ credibility was invested in footfall through Leopardstown and the Curragh on September 13th-14th.
Ultimately a figure of over 24,000 between the two fixtures was still less than a single ‘Ladies Day’ meeting at Listowel’s festival a week later. Since so much official kudos was also at stake there was no lack of effort either in encouraging those involved in the thoroughbred industry to actually show their faces. And a pair of days on which Irish autumn weather played ball can’t have hurt either.
But even allowing for all that, there was no mistaking the ‘buzz’ at Leopardstown on Irish Champion Stakes day. It was obvious immediately on going through the gates.
Irish race-fans have traditionally remained ambivalent towards the charms of watching the best flat horses ridden by the best jockeys racing in the best races for the best money: attendance figures, as evidenced by the Galway festival, usually bear little or no correspondence to the quality of what’s happening on the track.
“Champions Weekend” indicated there may be some hope of that actually changing. It was an encouraging start in highlighting the best of the sport here. Now it will be about maintaining that momentum. Circumstances won’t always play ball. The weather for one thing is impossible to predict. And there’s won’t always be a focal point such as Australia’s shock defeat in the big race (above). But it was a start. And it was exciting.
Malachy Clerkin
O’Driscoll’s last Leinster game
RDS, May 10th
It wasn’t a great game. Wasn’t even a particularly good one. In fact, top of the head, it’s hard to remember a single thing about it beyond the obvious.
But then, the game wasn’t the point of going along. Leinster winning the Pro 12 final, you could watch on TV. But Brian O’Driscoll’s last game of rugby, that’s a different story. For that, you had to be there.
It didn’t matter that we’d torn the arse out of his endless goodbyes by that stage.
We’d had his last crack at the All Blacks, his last Six Nations, his last Heineken Cup game.
It didn’t matter that he was getting embarrassed by it all. You still had to be there.
And in the end, it didn’t even matter that he only lasted eight minutes. His calf twanged on a regulation decoy run and it forced him off before the game really got going.
But that was okay. It was just sport reminding everyone that you can transcend it but you can’t outrun it. Not even if you’re Brian O’Driscoll.
He limped off the pitch, throwing his strappings on the grass in disgust. The RDS rose. The photographers scuttled for the exit shot. And that was that. The End.
Probably just as well.
He’d spent a career making a plausible case for the believability of fairytales.
Reality’s cold thump was an apt reminder that he was like the rest of us now, fallible flesh and bone, unable to bend fate to our own desires.
Emmet Malone
Brazil v Germany
Belo Horizonte, July 8th
I was sitting in the last seat of my row in the press box . It was to prove a perfect position from which to carry out the reality check that was required by just about everyone in the Estádio Mineirão half an hour into the game.
As Sami Khedira scored Germany’s fourth goal in six minutes, the whole thing took on a dream-like quality. For a moment or two I wondered to myself if this could actually be happening.
A glance to my right revealed hundreds of slack jawed journalists simply trying to take it all in. On my left, thousands of home supporters had tears streaming down their faces. Fair enough, I thought, it’s not just me.
Nobody had ever thought Brazil were a great team going into this tournament but a few of us had been foolish enough to think they still might be good enough to win it on home soil. The manner of their progress through the early knockout stages had raised doubts and the team seemed to display a fragile mindset at match-time. The sight before the game of David Luiz virtually weeping as he clutched his team-mate’s jersey during the national anthems can hardly have done much to strike fear into the Germans.
Thiago Silva, suspended for the game, proved a loss for the hosts. Dante, a European champion with Bayern Munich, came in to partner Luiz in central defence. Both men played like clowns. It’s difficult to choose a Brazilian player who emerged from the affair with pride but then perhaps that is a little harsh on Germany, who were outstanding.
Joachim Löw picked his most conventional team in the tournament and was rewarded with its most extraordinary performance. Without ever dominating possession, their midfield and attack simply ran riot. Thomas Müller (above), Miroslav Klose, Toni Kroos (2), Khedira and, after the break, Andre Schürrle (2) got the goals that inflicted the home side’s worst defeat since 1920. There might easily have been more.
Ian O’Riordan
European Championships
Zurich, August 15th
The image of a perfect rainbow breaking out over the Letzigrund Stadium not long before Mark English toes the line for his 800 metres final.
The calm look on the face of the 21 year-old from Donegal. Then the near perfect race and a bronze medal than shone almost as brightly as gold.
There was definitely something precious about English winning that European Championship medal on that warm Friday evening in Zurich last August. All week, the Irish medal hopes had disappeared, including earlier that day, when World Champion Rob Heffernan dropped out of the 50km walk.
Still, most of the expectations on the slender shoulders of English were his own: a blazing talent since his schoolboy days in Donegal, his obvious potential, coupled with his deep tactical intelligence, hadn’t yet been delivered on any major stage.
This time there would be no mistake, and while it wasn’t gold, and for a while it looked like silver, winning the bronze brought much elation – especially amongst those of us watching up in the press seats.
Soon, English was sharing a lap of honour with the other two medallists, victory going to Adam Kszczot from Poland, twice a European Indoor champion, who ran season best of 1:44.15. English clocked 1:45.03 to equal his season best, and in the process took out several more fancied medallists, including Pierre-Ambroise Bosse from France, the hot favourite who ended up last.
“And sometimes they say bronze medallists end up happier in the long run,” said English, still in the thick of his medical studies at UCD, and with the promise of much more to come.
Seb Coe, one of his heroes, was also 21 when he won European bronze over 800m, in 1978, a little teaser perhaps of what English might ultimately be capable of, on the run towards Rio 2016 and beyond.
Seán Moran Kilkenny v Tipperary, Croke Park All-Ireland SHC final, September 7th
Draws are no good. They leave a sense of anti-climax and are invariably overshadowed by the outcome of the replay. This year’s hurling final was definitive proof.
There could hardly have been a better match and that’s just going on the statistics. There were scarcely 10 missed attempts – eight wides and a shot dropped short – at scores between the two teams during the whole 70minutes and the scoring was off the charts. The teams shared 54 scores, a record, and even in terms of scoring values the aggregate was just two points short of the previous record, set in the first 80-minute final in 1970 – in other words, four per cent short in scores in 14 per cent fewer minutes.
It ended in breathtaking drama with a controversial free 97 metres out, followed by Tipperary forward John O’Dwyer’s attempt being referred to Hawk-Eye and ruled wide. One of the things lost in replays is the sense of anticipation that precedes the original match. The build-up is lower-key and there is a dawning sense after a great match that it was incomplete and lacked one important factor – a conclusion. So although there is widespread acclaim for what has been seen, the imminent replay quickly turns the drawn match into a reference point, the basis on which we work out what happens next.
Winning an All-Ireland final replay means winning an All-Ireland and ultimately that stays in the memory longer than what may well have been the best match ever seen in a final.
Keith Duggan
Liverpool v Chelsea
Anfield, April 27th
Months later, Steven Gerrard would observe that “every single person on the planet slips at some point in their life, whether it’s on the stairs or the floor or wherever.”
It was essentially true but it did nothing to lessen the monumental misfortune and cruelty of Gerrard’s infamous loss of footing, in the 48th minute of Liverpool’s most crucial league game since they had surrendered an injury time goal – and the league title – to Arsenal in the spring of 1989.
Gerrard slipped receiving a pass he has taken safely thousands of times before and Chelsea’s Demba Ba cantered clear – Liverpool’s highly adventurous attacking strategy meant that Gerrard, operating as a defensive midfielder, was also the last man home – from the semi-final circle to score his 5th league goal of the season.
John Henry, Liverpool’s owner, knows a thing about sporting hexes since acquiring the Boston Red Sox: Gerrard’s horrifying mistake was the equivalent of Bill Buckner’s mortifying through-the-legs moment in the World Series of 1986. All the previous goals Liverpool had conceded were forgotten as the winter of their unlikely revival was distilled into Gerrard’s mistake.
“It gave the title to Man City. Simple as that,” Jose Mourinho declared as recently as November.
Luis Suarez’s phenomenal contribution of 31 Premier League goals took Liverpool extraordinarily close to reconnecting with past glory. Had they won their first league title in 24 years – on the 25th anniversary year of the Hillsborough disaster which claimed the life of 96 people including Gerrard’s young cousin – then the veteran midfielder would have won probably the most famous league medal in the club’s history. That day is as close as he will come to it.
Never has the stark, random, cruelty of sport played such a decisive role in the outcome of an entire English football season.
Johnny Watterson
World Championships
Jeju, South Korea, November 20th
Styles make fights. In the Olympic Games it was Katie Taylor’s first bout against Britain’s Natasha Jonas that rocked London’s Excel Arena.
In Korea three weeks ago it was her World Championship second round meeting with Finland’s Mira Potkonen, where the anointed gloves were given their greatest workout.
The combative style of the Finn brought out the fighting instincts of the Olympic and World Champion. It was also Potkonen that drew out the mildly rebellious streak in a boxer known for her discipline and forbearance.
Potkonen arrived with a plan to rush the reigning champion, meet her physically at every moment, cut the corners and turn the bout into a harem-scarem, punching brawl.
Technically Katie was better, and her instructions were to keep away from the sort of fight where a lucky one from Potkonen might land. Her speed and power were also superior but winning sometimes isn’t enough.
She wilfully went to war with the Finn. It wasn’t for the whole fight. But for sustained exchanges throughout the rounds she stood toe to toe, hitting her opponent harder than she was being hit, hitting her twice for every one that landed on her Irish vest.
They were frenetic, high energy, violent exchanges and a demonstration of sorts, that maybe Katie was proving to herself as well as sending a message to others that her appetite for battle hadn’t buckled under the weight of the crowns and she would do whatever it took for a fifth successive title.
Afterwards Pete, her father and coach, noted that hers was a personal decision to stray from the script that read “stay out of trouble.”
But he was smiling, approving of the fearless self-assurance of his daughter. Even a world champion sometimes needs to do what feels right rather than what is right.
Mary Hannigan
Cork v Dublin, All-Ireland final
Croke Park, September 28th
Cork hadn’t even won an All-Ireland football title until 2005. Eamonn Ryan took over as manager the year before in the hope of steering the women’s football team in the direction of a bit of success. Since then? Nine All-Irelands in 10 years, eight national league titles and 10 Munster championships. So it’s all gone reasonably well.
In September, though, against Dublin, the only other county to win an All-Ireland since 2005, it seemed certain the team’s day was done when they trailed by 10 points with just 15 minutes to go. Nothing was going right, an endless stream of wides leaving the players looking deflated. Time to bid adieu to one of Gaelic sport’s greatest ever teams?
Not just yet.
The comeback, spurred by Ryan’s substitutions, was breathtaking. Eight of the players on the field in the final quarter were seeking their ninth All-Ireland medal; three of them – Briege Corkery, Rena Buckley and Angela Walsh – had won yet another camogie All-Ireland a fortnight before.
The experience showed, they knew how to fix it, but it was one of the newcomers, 17-year-old Eimear Scally, who levelled the game with a goal, with Geraldine O’Flynn getting the winning point. In those closing 15 minutes, Cork outscored Dublin by 2-7 to 0-2.
They now possess a record that few counties can match in the history of Gaelic football.
Will they settle for that?
Valerie Mulcahy: “It’ll be some craic trying to hit 10.”
That’s a no, then.
David McKechnie
Netherlands v Mexico
Fortaleza, June 29th
You know a tournament is special when a game of incredible drama becomes part of the fabric of it rather than a standout event.
The conditions attached to this World Cup second-round match hinted it would be no ordinary afternoon. In baking sunshine outside the ground, enterprising young lads ferried fans along the final, draining miles on their bicycles.
Water-sellers were ubiquitous and thriving. It was 38 degrees at pitch-side for the 1pm kick-off, and so hot in the stands that thousands of fans abandoned prized seats to hide in the shade at the back.
These were hardly conditions for watching football, never mind playing it; and yet the exotic cocktail of the heat, the early kick-off and the remote venue felt so true to the World Cup experience that it could have been produced in a laboratory.
On the pitch, the players tuned in to the incongruous circumstances, giving us a game that seemed to be one thing before becoming something else entirely. Mexico dominated a cagey first half, and it was no shock when they went ahead on 48 minutes through a beautiful long-range strike by Giovani dos Santos. Louis van Gaal reacted by bringing on another attacker and the game changed utterly. The Netherlands swept forward but they weren’t rewarded until the final three minutes when, almost unbelievably, they scored twice – first through Wesley Sneijder, then a penalty by substitute Klaas-Jan Huntelaar after Arjen Robben had managed to be, simultaneously, the victim of a foul and the orchestrator of an elaborate dive.
Around the ground people jumped from their seats and, when the instant thrill had died, looked around in amazement.
There was nothing to say.
John O’Sullivan
Ryder Cup
Gleneagles, September 26-28th
Laird of Gleneagles is probably one of the few titles that Paul McGinley won’t have bestowed upon him in the wake of Europe’s 16 ½ - 11 ½ Ryder Cup victory against the USA over the Centenary course in September, but he’ll bag plenty of other baubles.
The Dubliner was deservedly feted for his role as non-playing European captain in masterminding the triumph from the minutiae of team-room colour schemes and inspirational murals to the nuance of choosing symbiotic pairings; Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson are one example, Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell and French swashbuckler Victor Dubuisson another. His man-management and strategy was beyond reproach.
McGinley’s management skills were in sharp contrast to his American counterpart Tom Watson, whose decision to drop Phil Mickelson for the first time in 10 Ryder Cups on the Saturday led to a squirm-inducing post-tournament American press conference.
Lefty verbally pummelled Watson to the point a ruling was sought from many present as to whether his comments strayed out of bounds.
The pageantry of the first tee may come across on television as a bit twee, a kind of X Factor for the sartorially blind, but it’s genuinely good fun. Player participation is a must and Patrick Reed’s pantomime villain provided some final-day entertainment for the spectators. The European supporters in the galleries were spoilt for choice in that respect, and certainly walking in the footsteps of Rory McIlroy’s stunning singles victory over Ricky Fowler was a highlight.
Gavin Cummiskey
Ireland v New Zealand
Marcoussis, August 5th
Lynne Cantwell smiles at the memory of watching Frozen with her teammates the night before playing New Zealand. The sing-a-long to Let It Go was delivered in the same cheery fashion they belted out Ireland’s Call before New Zealand’s war dance.
“The haka, we didn’t put too much emphasis on it,” said Cantwell. “We just lined up and respected it but you could feel everyone getting closer and closer towards the end so we all came together in our circle afterwards and there was a collective, spontaneous burst of – not laughter – but, ‘Oh my God this is happening’. Then we put our hands in and said, ‘Let’s go f--king mental!’ That was our team talk!”
There followed a near perfect opening 25-minute assault on New Zealand’s try line that ended under the Ireland posts after one handling error was ruthlessly punished.
The evolution of this Ireland team has increased dramatically in recent days but a plan was put in place these past few months. Joe Schmidt’s interest in their cause undoubtedly helped but those early weeks in Marcoussis felt like a perfect storm.
“Sometimes in phases four, five and six we would have micro-plays and in this game we did start to call them, with twos and threes working together and using their feet. So when the ball came out we were doing pre-planned stuff,” Cantwell continued, “whereas before the ball would come out and we would wait and see. In the opening 20 minutes that was happening a lot and that got our confidence up.”
“Those first 20 minutes proved that we had done everything right.”
Later came the Niamh Briggs catch, step and break to create Ali Miller’s try. And Briggs’s touchline conversion.
But those first 20 minutes and Frozen and Joe’s interest all feel like equally important moments on this odyssey.
