TICK-tock, tick-tock. Time turned like a blade and every second that passed was a knife into Mayo’s guts.
Deep into the giddy mayhem of seven minutes of injury-time it was 2-9 to 0-14 and they trailed the Dubs by a point.
Mayo (who’d scored both of Dublin’s goals for them) searched desperately for an equaliser.
They deserved it, but that counts for precisely bo-diddly in September at Croke Park.
75.02. Stephen Cluxton took a kickout after Aidan O’Shea had sent a shot wide.
75.51. The ball went out for a sideline deep in Mayo territory.
76.16. Diarmuid Connolly tried a shot. A point would have won it, a wide and referee Conor Lane might blow the game up. It went wide.
76.30. Lane didn’t blow and David Clarke kicked-out.
76.54: Cillian O’Connor races through and tries a shot from around the Dublin 45.
76.54 and-a-half: The ball goes over the Dublin bar.
76.54 and-three-quarters: Bedlam in the stands.
It finished in a draw, a crazy topsyturvy stalemate in teeming rain during which Mayo out-Mayoed themselves not once, but twice.
Earlier on in the day (at half-time in the minor final to be more precise) the GAA unfurled a far-from-new concept – tracking the progress of the Mayo team bus on its way to Croke Park from a helicopter.
“There’s the Mayo team bus,” explained the bloke with the microphone who does the announcing of stuff at Headquarters.
“They’re on their way!”
“They’d cert-tain-ly need to be,” says someone behind with a lilting chuckle and who was it only the doyen of commentators himself Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh! “That bus is going very slow,” he continued as pictures showed the bus inching its way towards Headquarters in no particular rush.
“They’re still on the mot-or-way. They’ve to be on the field in an hour and-a-half!” Mícheál was on the field himself well before that, to introduce this year’s jubilee team – Down side of 1991.
As an Armagh fan I can remember watching that Down team win the All-Ireland and being convinced that they were, to a man, the embodiment of ‘pure evil’. A fella down the road from our house – an immigrant from Annaclone – had the cheek, the absolute cheek, to put a red and black flag out a couple of days before the final.
He has only recently been forgiven (we feel a bit sorry for him now) but in fairness that was a serious Down side and every one of them, from skipper Paddy O’Rourke to Kerry McVeigh at the end of the thin red and black line, was given a rousing cheer by the crowd with perhaps the biggest of all reserved for Mayobridge maestro Mickey Linden who stepped forward alongside Peter ‘two goal’ Withnell and James ‘Wee James’ McCartan.
With all the proprieties sorted out it was on to the main event: Dubs versus eternal bridesmaids Mayo and there were shocks from the start with Tom Parsons kicking the first point.
Big Parsons had 36 touches in a game once and never touched leather with his boot – on this evidence he should do it more often and Mayo got a second before the Dubs went piling forward.
It wasn’t long before the most Mayo thing that’s ever happened to Mayo in the history of Mayo happened. Connolly sent a great ball to Brian Fenton and the sequence went something like this: Shot-save-shotblock-shot-deflection-GOAL.
Poor oul Kevin McLoughlin got the final touch to it and suddenly the Dubs had the lead.
Cillian O’Connor equalised and then the sides contrived to miss a succession of chances before the most Mayo thing that’s ever happened to Mayo in the history of Mayo was relegated into second place by another own goal.
Dean Rock was having one of those days and he fumbled the ball into the path of the retreating Colm Boyle who popped it neatly into his net.
20 minutes gone and it was 2-0 to 0-3 and Mayo had scored the lot.
James McCarthy had been blackcarded by the time ‘Deano’ finally scored Dublin’s first bona fide score – with 29.49 on the clock.
The Dubs led by five at the break during which professional Kerryman Dáithí Ó Sé introduced what he described as “a small bit of ceoil”
“When I think of The Irish News I always think of Kenny Rogers,” says a guy sitting behind him as we got into a bit of half-time chat. Before I could reply “Oh yeah Kenny Rogers – brilliant songwriter, great singing voice, superb beard, mad Tyrone fan…” he corrected himself: “Kenny Archer I mean.”
Oh yes Kenny Archer – never written a hit, terrible singing voice, no beard, but also a mad Tyrone fan…
Anyway, as Kenny (Rogers) might sing: ‘You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table, there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealin’s done’ and the dealin’ certainly wasn’t done.
When the action began again Mayo looked inspired and with Dublin struggling they were soon level.
Mayo fan: “Come on Mayo. Do you want this?” Dublin fan: “Come on Dublin, wake up.”
It was a superb spectacle by this stage – so good that fans shown on big-screen crowd shots didn’t even notice.
‘Smally’ (John Small), Deano and Diarmo put the Dubs three up but Mayo reeled them. Cillian O’Connor’s point left two in it then Donal Vaughan’s left one and then we headed for those seven minutes of added-on time.
The fat lady was clearing her throat when O’Connor got his chance.
He took it with a superb finish and so we’ll return on October 1.
After their heroics Mayo have to win the replay, don’t they? Don’t bet on it.
