6 OF THE BEST!
Mighty Dubs lay claim to being greatest team in GAA history as they pile agony on Mayo and lift Sam for sixth year in a row
Dublin 2-14 Mayo 0-15
IT WAS a fittingly unusual opening. ‘I think it is fair to say that this year has been anything but normal,’ the most famous former Kildare under-age footballer in the world intoned at the start of Sky Sports coverage. Paul Mescal’s emergence as an unlikely sex symbol has been something completely in keeping with this strangest of years.
And given everything else that has happened in 2020, perhaps this will be finally their year. Wouldn’t it have been totally Mayo to win with no supporters in Croke Park or no homecoming allowed to be held in Castlebar?
‘Mayo show up every single time they are supposed to show up,’ Tomás Ó Sé proclaimed at the start of RTÉ’s coverage, building a narrative that they were going to ask questions of Dublin the champions had yet to be asked this winter.
Beside Ó Sé, Oisín McConville was telling us that the Mayo players will get in amongst the Dubs and ruffle a few feathers, which hasn’t happened yet in this championship. And that’s what they needed to do. Bring a bit of craziness. And a dollop of intensity.
‘Pressure,’ Jim McGuinness stated simply when asked how Mayo could win. The former Donegal manager did predict that Mayo would end the famine at the start of this Championship and he wasn’t wavering now, even if Peter Canavan and Kieran Donaghy, again channelling his inner Healy-Rae, were sticking with the safe option. Dubs to do six in a row.
And within 15 seconds, that looked the smart bet. Dean Rock’s goal was ‘the fastest ever scored in an All-Ireland final,’ Mike Finnerty affirmed on the Sky commentary. Just another of those setbacks that Mayo have to deal with.
But their response to the early goal was brilliant. Mayo ‘played as if they didn’t even concede the goal’ as Donaghy would point out. Before the throw-in, both Ó Sé and Canavan, on RTÉ and Sky respectively, highlighted the kick-outs as being the key part of this game. By the first water break, Billy Joe Padden was pointing out how well Mayo were doing on the kick-out.
At half-time, Peter Canavan, who has carved a reputation as one of the most incisive analysts around, offered a staggering statistic. Stephen Cluxton had lost more than half his kick-outs and Dublin had lost every restart when their captain opted to go long. It is the sort of thing that teams need to do to stand any chance against the Dubs. And yet, Mayo still trailed by two points at the break.
They did have the advantage of an extra man for the first 10 minutes of the second half. ‘This is the most significant 10 minutes ever for Mayo football coming up,’ McGuinness said. And the pundits were in agreement across the two channels. The westerners needed to make the most of this advantage with Canavan laying down the marker and saying Mayo should be four or five points ahead coming into the final quarter.
However, they weren’t. It was Dublin who managed the game brilliantly when a man down. Brian Howard came on and exerted influence around the middle. Brian Fenton effortlessly glided into the game. And they got the breaks, as Dublin always do.
David Coldrick saw fit not to sinbin Jonny Cooper for a textbook black card offence. Neither Coldrick nor any of his officials saw Mick Fitzsimon’ reckless challenge on Lee Keegan. The sort of things that made a difference.
As the game entered the final 10 minutes, the hopefulness and optimism which had peppered Kevin McStay’s words during the first half had vanished. There was a sense of deflation from the RTÉ commentator.
‘The last 10 minutes of the game, it was essentially gone from them,’ McStay reflected at the final whistle while Ger Canning, commentating on his 78th All-Ireland final, felt that this all had the sense of ‘we have seen it before’.
‘Ten All-Ireland final defeats. A case of what might have been all over again,’ Mike Finnerty said, laying it out in stark terms in Sky. Both himself and Canning agreed that Dublin are the greatest team to ever play the game, but the narrative was once again dominated by Mayo. ‘Gallant Mayo,’ as Paul Earley sighed.
‘It is going to take something amazing to knock them off their perch,’ McGuinness suggested, and as still the last man to beat Dublin in Championship football, he knows what he is talking about.
We fooled ourselves into thinking that in this year that has been anything but normal, something extraordinary might happen. But it ended up being the same movie we have seen so many times before – and we are all getting sick of it.
‘IT’S A CASE OF WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, ALL OVER AGAIN’