Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘LOADED’ AGAINST ULSTER..
four or top six to win the Sam Maguire, the targets for the year became a provincial final, a provincial Championship and the All-ireland quarter-final was a target that was seen to be achievable for a vast number of counties,” said Mccartan.
Dara O Cinneide’s Kerry career was split between the pre- and post-qualifier eras.
After 2001, the quarter-finals effectively marked the start of a new competition. “There’s no doubt it slightly diminished the provincial championships but it was like two different championships,” he said.
“Even a couple of years ago where
Kerry lost to Galway in the first round of the Super 8s it was, ‘Where’s the team that won a Munster Championship so impressively?’.”
Kerry were nearly caught in the first quarterfinal 19 years ago, when only Maurice Fitzgerald’s genius salvaged a draw against Dublin in Thurles. O Cinneide had been replaced just minutes earlier.
“I was sitting next to Barry O’shea. We both said, ‘He’s going to nail this’ because we’d seen him do it a thousand times. The worst thing you could have ever done was to try and rattle him, what Tommy Carr did. He was definitely going to nail it then. “In 2004 it was a big one where Tyrone and Armagh fell on the same day. That weekend had a feel of, ‘Jesus, this is a huge weekend in Gaelic football’.” Kerry seemed immune to those upsets until Down caught them 10 years ago this weekend, maintaining the Ulster county’s remarkable 100% record against them.
“Playing Kerry was special for our group of Down players,” said Mccartan. “I’d suggest it wasn’t as special for that group of Kerry players. The draw was made on a Sunday night and we were down to play Kerry six days later. That time, getting a hold of the DVD of Down against Sligo probably could have taken until the Wednesday or
Thursday. They wouldn’t have had much of a look at us. We didn’t need much education about Kerry.
“There’s no doubt that if that Kerry team played us 10 times they probably would have beat us more than five or six but on that day I certainly think that we were deserving winners.”
As it turned out, all four provincial champions were beaten that particular weekend.
But the next year it flipped completely and their dominance only grew to the point that the GAA moved to shake up the quarter-final stage with the introduction of the Super 8s two years ago.
“I’m not sure if I would agree with the Super 8s,” said Mccartan. “You’re giving more opportunities to the top eight teams and you’re going back to disadvantaging the lesser teams.”
“The elite teams have got more elite,” agreed O Cinneide (left). “Can you imagine Down making a final now? Wexford making the semis in 2008? That’s almost unthinkable 12 years later.”