Well now. Behold a Sunday that didn’t so much light a fire under the football championship as plunge an adrenaline syringe into its heart.
Of the six matches played across the country, four ended up with something meaningful riding on the last kick. You asked for jeopardy? Here, have a year’s worth in the space of a couple of hours.
Have John Heslin standing over a free in the 75th minute for Westmeath, with Tyrone’s championship in his hands. The match was level, time for just one more kick – had Heslin scored it, Tyrone would have been gone and Dessie Dolan’s side would have progressed to the last 12. But it curled wide on the near side and the 2021 champions survived.
Or have Shane Walsh standing over free in the 79th minute for Galway, with the Armagh crowd baying and a quarter-final place on the line. As it turned out, he missed two ways – short and wide. And suddenly Galway were the only provincial champions with a date next weekend, Kerry, Dublin and Derry having secured themselves a direct route to the quarter-finals.
Or here, have Aidan O’Shea standing over a free in the 76th minute for Mayo, with Cork having scored 1-6 unanswered down the stretch and leading by three points. The game was gone but had O’Shea scored the free, Mayo would have finished second and would be playing at home next weekend. Instead it dropped short and Cork finished second, not on head-to-head and not on scoring difference but on number of points scored.
Or, most unlikely of all, have Kevin Feely taking a skywalk mark deep in injury-time for Kildare and splitting the posts from under the stand in Tullamore to beat Roscommon. A booming score that secured them a home advantage they can’t even use – Newbridge is nowhere right now, after all – and yet it gave Glenn Ryan probably the sweetest moment of his reign so far.
Are we not entertained? It was frantic, it was chaotic, it was everything you could ask for from a GAA summer afternoon. Whether it was quite worth the 11 weeks of Lough Derg-style penance it took to reach this point is something that will detain the authorities in the off-season. But for one day at least, this worked.
“You have to sit back and look at it,” said Kieran McGeeney after Armagh’s 0-16 to 1-12 win over Galway in Carrick-on-Shannon. “In some of the games today, everybody was fighting for every single score. To me, the system is much better [than before]. It’s not the leadership of the GAA I’d be giving credit to – the teams have really leaned into it.
“I think it’s been a good system. Games that mean more. Championship games. Teams that are trying to develop are getting more games. There’s a lot to be happy about. It’s funny – I’m told I’m a bit dour and I don’t smile enough. And yet I think it’s about eight or nine years ago that I turned off the TV because all you hear is people crying and complaining.”
If there was crying or complaining about the place after this, it was only from previously fancied sides who have suddenly sleepwalked into peril. Mayo are the prime example – rampant against Kerry in Killarney just a month ago, they completely froze down the stretch against a resurgent Cork side.
“We were coming down on the bus in a great position obviously,” said Kevin McStay. “But very aware of the danger and I mean that sincerely. I said that to anybody who would listen. These are not simple games. That old idea of what division you are in, and we draw a line, that’s over.
“So we knew it was dangerous. But I would argue that we got into a great position around the third quarter when we got the six up. But we didn’t manage it and gave it away fairly quickly. I think that is the turning point.”
For Cork, it was their first win over a Division One team since the 2020 Munster final in a ghostly Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Not only did it earn them a home game next weekend, it had the knock-on effect of putting Kerry through as group winners after their 5-24 to 0-11 win over Louth. Every silver lining has a cloud.
“All it does is take us to another round,” said John Cleary. “I think the big belief comes from beating a Division One team. We needed to do that and there were a lot of doubters there – and maybe we hadn’t done anything to deserve the plaudits. This is another little step on the journey.”
For them, for everyone.
A day to wake up and smell the championship.
***
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
* Kerry, Dublin, Armagh and Derry head straight to the All-Ireland quarter-finals on the weekend of July 1st/2nd.
* The draw for next weekend’s preliminary quarter-finals takes place on Morning Ireland at 8.30am. In one bowl, the second seeds – Cork, Donegal, Kildare and Galway. Each of them will have a home game next weekend against one of the third seeds – Mayo, Monaghan, Tyrone and Roscommon.
* Counties cannot draw teams who were in their All-Ireland series group. They can draw teams they’ve already met in their province
