Eight teams left, seven games to decide the summer’s football. The weekend was like Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstopper machine, rocking and groaning and steaming away, only for the result to somehow be both underwhelming and exciting at the same time.
The four teams that were supposed to win their preliminary quarter-finals got the job done. The quarter-final octet is who you said it would be.
Kerry, Dublin, Galway and Donegal expelled varying levels of sweat in their toiling. After Kerry (easily) and the Dubs (doggedly) disposed of Cavan and Cork on Saturday, Sunday saw Donegal (in a stroll) and Galway (in a dogfight) get past Louth and Down. The Monday morning draw will decide things from here, if it hasn’t happened by the time you read this. The only thing we know for sure is that Armagh will play Kerry.
Whatever next weekend throws up, the games will have a job on their hands living up to Galway’s win over Down in Newry. Pádraic Joyce’s side came through by 2-26 to 3-21, capping a run of three games in four weeks on the road against Ulster teams without defeat. However ready the other seven teams are for Croke Park next week, nobody will feel more battle-hardened.
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“A lot of aspects we’d be really happy with,” Joyce said afterwards. “Obviously a lot of aspects we wouldn’t be happy with and the amount of scores we conceded. But it was that kind of game anyway; it was going to be open. We couldn’t have it every way. Happy to get out of here with the win, to be honest.
“People are saying we don’t play for 70 minutes. I think we got a good performance there for the full 70 minutes overall. You’re never going to get things your own way. There was two [teams] knocked out yesterday and two knocked out today, so we’re down to the last eight. That’s where we’re at.
“We know where we are, we’re happy enough to be there. We’ve work to do and we just can’t perform like that next week, whoever we are playing in the quarter-finals. If we concede that kind of score, we’re going to be in trouble.”
That they did was as much a function of Down’s attitude as any shortcoming on Galway’s part. Carried on the back of a stunning display from Odhran Murdock, Conor Laverty’s team contributed to another stunning game. They will play in Division Three next year but they’re no third-tier team.
“I would have a vision of where I want Down to go,” Laverty said afterwards. “We don’t talk about winning Sam Maguires; we talk about [how] we want to get to the top bracket of teams. I think the top six teams in Ireland . . . probably even maybe top eight at the moment, could all feel that they could win Sam Maguire.”
That’s where this thing is at. Of the eight teams remaining, six have been in the last four finals. Monaghan and Meath are the odd pair out but neither will feel any foreboding at whoever comes out of the draw.
Donegal were the last men in, on the back of a 2-22 to 0-12 win over Louth in Ballybofey. Oisin Gallen found his form after a rocky start to the championship and they were able to call Michael Murphy and Ryan McHugh ashore long before the end to save them for next weekend.
But when it comes right down to it, Donegal have already lost to Tyrone, they’ve been taken to the last minute of extra-time by Armagh and they only had a kick of a ball to spare over Monaghan. They’re no big bad wolf. Nobody is.
“We had a lot of mistakes in the first half,” Jim McGuinness told GAA+ afterwards. “We made a lot of mistakes, we made it difficult for ourselves at times, dropped an awful lot of balls short. Once you start doing that it becomes like basketball, you’re up and down the pitch and playing under fatigue. So we’ve a good few things to look at and work on but obviously very, very happy to get over the line.
“It’s been the case since the first throw-in of the first game of the league, everybody’s been saying how competitive Division One was. It was incredibly competitive and everybody could beat everybody on a given day.
“Obviously the way Down have progressed through the championship, the way Monaghan have progressed, how Meath have progressed – they’re playing like Division One teams. So it’s very, very competitive. We know that. But at the same time, we just wanted to be in that draw and we’re where we want to be.”
Same as all the others.
