GAA:THIS IS the last of it. We promise. Unless Seánie Johnston starts kicking points for fun, there will be no more stories about his convoluted transfer saga.
We hope.
The hype surrounding Johnston’s alleged migration from Cavan to Kildare was always going to create a fuss around Breffni Park yesterday.
And, as it turned out, along the route the Kildare panel would travel. Just before Virginia there was a banner erected 20 feet above the road: “Our Lilies are homegrown,” it read.
Another further down the track stated: “Welcome home Seanie.”
Suffice to say, the return of Cavan’s former captain in Kildare colours caused some consternation among the 14,558 paying customers yesterday. Johnston sat on the bench until the hour mark, when he came on to make his debut just around the corner from where he was raised (but no longer lives we have been assured).
A few grey tops in the main stand were calling him all sorts of names.
“Don’t shake his hand!” roared an elderly Cavan gentlemen when the players intermingled after Kildare’s emphatic 3-20 to 1-9 victory, which puts them into this morning’s draw for round three of the qualifiers.
“Sure you wouldn’t play him when you had him,” smiled an equally mature man wearing a Kildare head band.
An argument ensued, while the players shook hands on the field and went off for their showers.
Johnston’s former team-mates did get a few opportunities to decapitate him in those 10 minutes. They failed. He even picked himself up in injury time to post his first ever point for Kildare. His first ever point against Cavan too.
En route to the Kildare bus, Seánie was asked to stall for a few words. He declined. Kieran McGeeney almost always talks to the media after games. Most of the time it gets a little tetchy. He doesn’t really understand us, nor we him. This was one of those times.
Granted, it could be interpreted as a loaded question. What would you say to Cavan supporters that maybe thought it unnecessary to put Seánie Johnston on?
“He was playing well this week at training. It’s like everybody else. I can’t treat him any differently. If he’s playing well he’s entitled to a start,” said McGeeney.
A question about the booing that accompanied Johnston’s arrival or the massive cheer when he was beaten to a ball followed.
Did you ever experience an atmosphere like that in a football ground, Kieran?
“What’s that, cheering? Yeah, it was a great atmosphere. The Kildare supporters were brilliant. They were fantastic from the word go.”
But in terms of the hostility shown towards a player?
“Did you see hostility there? I didn’t. All I could hear was cheers . . . ”
The pretence didn’t last. It got a little personal. Not worth printing. The interview finished with all parties sarcastically agreeing that it was a perfectly normal game.
There was another perfectly normal game going on at Cusack Park in Mullingar. Except for the scoreboard five minutes into the second-half reading: Westmeath 1-9 Kerry 1-3.
Jack O’Connor was forced to fling the hamstrung Darran O’Sullivan into the fray. The livewire forward strapped up and went for it, scoring a goal and teeing up Colm Cooper for a crucial point before injuring himself again. It was enough.
“Yeah, that was as tight as it gets now,” said a relieved O’Connor on Kerry’s one-point victory. “You wouldn’t give much for our chances 10 minutes into the second half. We’d a mountain to climb, I don’t think we’d have got out of there without Darran O’Sullivan’s goal.
“He was tightening up again and we decided to take him out again in case he did too much damage.
“It’s not cured 100 per cent but it looked like we were going out of the championships so we had to throw him in. Thankfully he did a good job for us while he was in there.”
Kerry survive an awful fright then.
There was one more controversy that appears to have been put to bed. Mayo retained the Connacht football title yesterday by beating Sligo 0-12 to 0-10 at Dr Hyde Park. And they did it without Conor Mortimer.
The county’s record scorer quit the panel last Tuesday after manager James Horan decided not to select him.
“I had a tough week but I don’t think the Conor Mortimer thing affected the players whatsoever,” said Horan.
In response to the statement released last Thursday by the Mortimer family criticising him, Horan said: “There’s a lot of people in Mayo know what the actual facts are and that statement is just . . . it doesn’t warrant a response.”
