If you are a devotee of Meath’s Gaelic football team, there’s a fair chance that you woke up this morning with a smile on your face having dreamt that they beat Dublin for the first time since 2010. We bring you good news: it actually happened. A dream come true.
Tipperary’s hurlers had, though, a nightmarish start against Cork when they were down a man before the sliotar was even thrown in. The dismissal, says Nicky English in his analysis of the weekend’s action, ended all hope of the game being a tight contest, Denis Walsh noting that it was the correct call, although usually there’s “an unspoken amnesty for stuff that goes on before the ball is thrown in”.
Waterford, meanwhile, “blew the roof off the Munster senior series” with their win over Clare, and Galway and Kilkenny picked up comfortable enough victories over Offaly and Antrim, respectively. Dublin got the better of Wexford, but with the assistance of a highly controversial goal.
Another lively weekend for hurling, then, this being the time of year when it is “placed on an altar for worship”. But, wonders Denis, if it’s so good, “why is it so small?”, why is it not being played in more parts of the country?
If hurling is so good, why is it so small?
Meath scored more in one half against Dublin than entirety of previous nine meetings
Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea’s crazy minute shows how hard it is to referee El Clásico
Fin Smith meets Sam Prendergast in latest test of young outhalves under constant scrutiny
Back to the football championship and Louth wobbled past Kildare to set up a final meeting with Meath ... which the authorities will hope proves somewhat less controversial than their 2010 tussle. Armagh were made to sweat by Tyrone, needing a last-gasp point from Rory Grugan to send them in to their third successive Ulster final. There they will meet Donegal again, Jim McGuinness’s men seeing off Down.
The rugby weekend? Ireland’s women were beaten by Scotland in the final game of their Six Nations campaign, and Munster, Leinster, Ulster and Connacht all lost in the URC. Carnage. Clontarf and UL Bohemians were beaming, though, after winning their respective All-Ireland League finals at the Aviva Stadium, and Nenagh Ormond were on cloud nine after they became the first Tipperary club to win promotion to Division 1A.
In soccer, Ken Early salutes Arne Slot’s remarkable debut season at Liverpool, his side wrapping up the Premier League title on Sunday. Caoimhín Kelleher was among those to collect a shiny medal for the feat, Adam Idah and Liam Scales doing the same when Celtic sealed the Scottish Premiership title on what proved to be a weekend of highs and lows for the Irish abroad. Katie McCabe was in the high category – she became the first Irish player to reach a Champions League final after Arsenal’s stunning semi-final triumph over Lyon.
And in the least surprising news of the weekend, Willie Mullins won a second successive cross-channel championship at Sandown on Saturday, Brian O’Connor telling us that he ended the season there with prize money of €4.1 million. Good going.
TV Watch: Snooker’s World Championships enters its second week, and there’s a mountain of live coverage of it today from 1.0 this afternoon – on BBC 2, BBC Four and TNT Sports 3. At 7.30 this evening, TG4 brings you the Munster Under-20 football final between Cork and Kerry, and half an hour later RTÉ2’s Against the Head has the highlights of the rugby weekend. Although, more lowlights to be honest.
