The Age of Shocks is over.
Dublin and Kerry moved remorselessly on to the All-Ireland semi-final after a quarter-final double-bill which contained a chilling portent of future seasons.
Kerry, the reigning champions, opened the day with a 7-16 to 0-10 crushing of Kildare which coldly illustrated the gap between the elite teams and those in the main pack.
The cold grey August afternoon did not help the mood music here and Croke Park can play tricks sometimes. A crowd of 58,680 showed up for the day and yet the place felt ghostly.
For a while, the beating heart of the championship seemed to exist in the glorious defiance of Fermanagh who lost, as expected, to Dublin but only by eight points and only after scoring a commendable 2-15.
They took an ovation in the end and it was well deserved. Pete McGrath’s team were the first team all summer to dare to play football with the Dubs without fear of the consequences.
Went hard
Everyone was impressed.
"The way that they played in that last quarter reminded of how they played against Roscommon in Enniskillen. They really went hard at it, pushed right up and took some great scores and played to their true potential," said Dublin manager Jim Gavin.
It is true that Fermanagh's first goal was contentious at the very least, originating when Sean Quigley bundled Stephen Cluxton over the line. No free was blown but the score was given. The Hill were incensed. The Dublin manager was perplexed.
“I didn’t realise you could tackle the goalkeeper in Gaelic football,” said Gavin.
“That’s the interpretation that was made today and you can’t change it in that moment of the game. You just got to roll with it and get on with it.”
Fermanagh visitors, here for their first summer game in 11 years, were euphoric. The score triggered a wonderfully spirited closing ten minutes by them which was a tribute to their manager Pete McGrath.
The overall result might have been lost so the Fermanagh players concentrated on little victories here and there and their supporters, rightly, loved them for it. Quigley carried his All-Star standard form into the stadium, finishing with 0-8 and Tomas Corrigan bagged another goal, snapping up a spilled goal when Jack McCaffrey made a terrific block.
Dublin concocted a goal per half, the first from Bernard Brogan who was also the central creator in Paul Flynn's close-range retort to Fermanagh's late revival. The Dubs were in control here but the concession of such a big score will have been noted.
“Players don’t need me to tell them that performance, particularly the last quarter, won’t be good enough against Mayo or Donegal,” said Gavin.
In contrast the first game was a dismal spectacle for neutrals and soul-sapping for Kildare’s legion of football supporters. All the All-Ireland champions’ seven goals came in the second half and there was something almost eerie about the sight of their hard-running, crafty forwards conspiring to execute five on the trot, as if they had decided to dispense with shots over the bar.
When Stephen O’Brien tapped in the sixth the score was 6-11 to 0-7 and Kildare looked like such a spent force that double-figure goals did not seem beyond Kerry.
Third goal
Even as
Colm Cooper
passed up the opportunity to nail his third goal it seemed like an act of charity. But Kerry had the blood-buzz going here.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice used the occasion to give his reserves floor time with which to make their arguments: Paul Galvin, Darran O'Sullivan (2-1) and Tommy Walsh were among those bidding to impress.
“We saw what Kildare could do last weekend against Cork,” said Fitzmaurice. “Fair enough, Cork weren’t at it the way they can be but Kildare were hugely impressive. . . So we were very respectful of the challenge they would bring . . .”
All of the optimism and sense of wellbeing Kildare generated against Cork dissolved here.
Ollie Lyons gave a poignantly brave account of himself in the Kildare defence but it was tough for Jason Ryan, standing on the sideline surveying the wreckage of a season.
“We didn’t delay Kerry as much as we needed to,” he said. “Our full-back line played very commendably in the first half in particular, despite the ball going in they dealt with an awful lot of it very well. But in the second half we had problems coming from all over the place.”
All over the place and then some.
On Saturday Tyrone and Donegal were convincing winners in their qualifier jousts and will return next Saturday to face provincial champions Monaghan and Mayo respectively. Sunshine is not guaranteed but the custodians of the championship will be keeping their fingers crossed for anything to raise the temperature.
