What did we learn about the likely destination of the Sam Maguire from this weekend's Allianz League games?
At one stage during Dublin and Kerry's collision of minds and bodies down in Killarney, Anthony Maher hit one of those majestic, curling shots that Kerry men specialise in. More impressively, he hit it through the sheets of driving rain which travelled across the stadium during the match. But if you looked closely, the ball actually got caught in the wind and picked up speed at the apex, travelling in a way that was uncanny.
Up at the other end of the country at the same time, Cork and Donegal were doing their best to harness the wind blowing in across the estuary. Cork have some of the best distance kickers in the sport, so crucial to Donegal’s gameplan was defending without giving away kickable frees in the first half. Their discipline was probably the winning of the game.
It helped them, too, that Cork are strangers to Fr Tierney park, which is on a height. It was only when Mark Collins floated a wonderful point from play that the visitors realised how far the ball can travel on the breeze in that ground.
Donegal were happy to demonstrate that in the second half when Michael Murphy and Odhrán MacNiallais landed monstrous points from frees, pitching the ball high and letting nature do the rest. But all afternoon, both teams were dealing with the wind as much as with each other and it came down to a grim struggle of willpower and patience and the odd bit of luck. Cork might have been hammered. They might have stolen the points.
Unlucky
“I said from the outset that teams would take points of each other,” said
Brian Cuthbert
after watching his side just about fall short. “This is a tough place to come and we have to try and win our home game against Kerry now. We had plenty of chances to snatch a draw but were a bit unlucky. I was happy enough with the character shown.”
Cuthbert, like Rory Gallagher, looked frozen. It was the rawest day imaginable. The road trip from Donegal to Cork is no joke but it is just a short spin in comparison to their closing league encounter, up in Celtic Park in Derry.
And at least it was sunny in Ballyshannon.
In Omagh on Saturday night, the conditions were beyond a joke for Tyrone’s tie with Derry. Spiteful wind, constant driving rain and surface water on the field . . . it was a borderline decision to play the game and a miserable experience for those who tried to watch it on television, let alone for the loyal souls who ventured to the game.
There is something pitiful about watching classy players like Seán Cavanagh and Fergal Doherty having to scramble about on nights like that. The miracle was that there were some brilliant scores – Darren McCurry's angled free, Michael McIver's point on the run. "A hometown decision," was Brian McIver's verdict on the late free which denied Derry a priceless win.
McIver knows the value of league points on weekends like this. They have almost entirely nothing to do with football. The main point of Division One football is not to win it but merely to stay in it. So these middle weeks, when all the top teams are still jostling for position, become crucial.
The sweet nothings which Kieran Donaghy yelled at Eoghan O'Gara during one of the petty rows which broke out in Killarney had less to do with the immediate victory than with gaining any small edge if and when they collide in Croke Park in high summer.
Similarly, Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly will be more pleased with the manner in which Mayo came through a bad tempered test against Monaghan, than the fact of it. During these weeks, all teams are lost in a private slog and turning out on these godforsaken spring weekends to try to play football can't be easy.
“There is never much room,” Rory Gallagher said after watching Donegal just about hold out against Cork. “These narrow wins are character building.”
And that is all that matters during the wild Sundays of early spring.
