COMEDY of errors.
It put a smile on the GAA’s financial face with an estimated £2m replay revenue windfall to come on September 29, but for the 65,898 fans at the All-Ireland Senior Football Final it was a poor quality advert for the championship.
Colum Coyle produced a bizzare equaliser to save Meath’s bacon less than a minute from time, a freakish point which took a direct bounce in front of the square and ricocheted over the bar, forcing a dramatic 1-9 to 0-12 draw.
And the only goal of the game, after 45 minutes, scored by Ray Dempsey was pure slapstick in the making.
Players collided, the ball deflected this way and that before Dempsey broke clear and almost tripped over his own feet before tucking away a sweet right-foot shot.
The goal put them six points ahead at 1-8 to 0-5 with 25 minutes to play. But somehow they contrived to blow it, and the question now is whether or not they have missed the champions boat.
Meath took them apart in the last 15 minutes, punishing ineptitude and a total lack of penetration.
A grim game. Mistakes were scattered all over the contest like confetti, both sides as bad as each other, although Mayo’s error-prone play in the second half was extremely expensive.
The title was on a plate to bridge a 45-year gap
Mayo: J Madden, K Mortimer, K Cahill, D Flanagan, P Holmes, J Nallen, N Connelly (capt), L McHale, D Brady, J Horan (0-3), C McMenamin (0-1), M Sheridan (0-4 all from frees), D Nestor, J Casey, R Dempsey (1-0),
Subs: PJ Loftus (0-1) for Nestor (50), A Finnerty for Casey (58).
Meath: C Martin, M O’Reilly, D Fay, M O’Connell, C Coyle (0-1), E McManus, P Reynolds, J McGuinness, J McDermott (0-1), T Giles (0-6 four from frees), T Dowd (capt), G Geraghty (0-1), E Kelly, B Reilly (0-3), B Callaghan.
Subs: C Brady for Kelly (46), J Devine for McGuinness (57), D Curtis for Reynolds (63).
CLIFTONVILLE will seek a fee in the region of £75,000 for Tim McCann if Notts County pursue their interest in the player once he has recovered from injury.
County boss Colin Murphy has approached the Reds about the possibility of taking McCann, who will be out of action for the next three weeks due to a ligament injury, on a week’s trial.
Cliftonville manager Marty Quinn is prepared to let the winger go on trial, but reasoned that, as County paid around £100,000 for Portadown’s Peter Kennedy, McCann is worth in the region of £75,000.
Quinn, meanwhile, may delve into the League of Ireland later this week in a bid to ease the Solitude injury crisis.
“There’s a possibility that I may use my southern contacts to bring players to Cliftonville on loan. I feel we especially need another striker at the club,” he stated.
IRELAND will have to do without the services of Olympic middleweight Brian Magee for their opening international against Wales in a month’s time.
The 20-year-old Holy Trinity is to undergo a knee operation shortly to sort out nagging ligament problems.
Magee and flyweight Damaen Kelly were Ireland’s last medal hopes in the Atlanta tournament, reaching the quarter-final stages.
But Magee had to shelve plans for a return to the international ring when a mid-week training session in the Trinity gym brought on a recurrence of the ligament trouble which has been dogging him since his European championship challenge in April.
“The medical men were on the ball in Atlanta. I had two X-rays to make sure there was nothing cracked,” said Magee yesterday.
“The knee had to be heavily strapped during training over there but it held up all right. “Now it looks like I’ll need surgery to fix it.’’
