|
|
 |
You are > Home > From the hype to the hoodoo
|
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
From the hype to the hoodoo
BY ANTHONY HENNIGAN
A WEEK might be a long time in politics but it’s short in comparison to a week in Sligo football.
It didn’t even take a week, six days in fact, for Sligo to implode quite spectacularly in Championship 2010.
Fast becoming every neutral’s favourite team, the team whose players demonstrated a spirit most other county’s yearned to see of their own, and their manager Kevin Walsh closing in on the Manager of the Year award, Sligo it seemed had sights on even bigger challenges than winning only their fourth ever Connacht title. Rarely, if ever, has a team and a manager’s stock dipped so dramatically in such a short timeframe.
The Yeats men had headed for Castlebar last Sunday week unbackable favourites to lift the Nestor Cup for a second time in four seasons, yet are now out of the AllIreland race before the quarter-final setting they seemed sure to grace.
Despite the unfairly quick turnaround between games, there was a widely held belief that there was enough character in Sligo ranks to elicit a positive team response and give Down a right run for their money in last Saturday night’s backdoor clash in Cavan. Sligo, we thought, might dodge the hoodoo of beaten provincial finalists losing their subsequent qualifier outing. A 19 points reversal was beyond prediction.
Hindsight is a wonderful curse. It encourages one to wonder were their warning signs that could have been picked up on? How good was the Mayo team Sligo beat by four points considering the Green and Red’s subsequent qualifier exit to Longford? How good was the Galway team Sligo beat by one point in a replay considering the Tribesmen’s subsequent qualifier exit at home to Wexford?
How good was the Roscommon team Sligo lost to by one point considering the Shannonsiders were this relegated to National League Division 4? Would Sligo have even reached that provincial final had Galway a fully fit Michael Meehan and Nicky Joyce at their disposal? And how underrated was the Down team that gave All-Ireland contenders Tyrone their fill in the Ulster championship?
There’s no doubt but that the events of the past week are a major setback to Sligo football and to their likeable manager Kevin Walsh. A number of Sligo stalwarts deserved more than to end their county careers – and you fear that is true of some – in ignominious defeat.
Walsh, however, is made of stern stuff and one has only to look at how Mickey Moran recovered from the setback that was losing to Galway by 18points in his final year as Sligo manager, to recognise that the Killanin man can emerge from this recent trauma a stronger and wiser manager.
Within two years of overseeing Sligo’s 0-22 to 0-4 collapse to Galway in the 2000 Connacht championship when, like Walsh, Moran seemed to have made serious progress in the previous years, the Derry native guided Donegal to an All-Ireland quarter-final draw with Dublin, and that after a narrow Ulster final defeat to the eventual All-Ireland winners Armagh. Two years further down the road he had Derry in an All-Ireland semi-final and two years on again, he was leading Mayo into battle on AllIreland final day.
Kevin Walsh’s future can be just as bright.
Donal in good company
‘WHEN was the last time a player scored 10 points in a Connacht final?’ I asked my esteemed colleagues in the press-box, my youthfulness restricting me from recalling an equalling or bettering of Donal Shine’s haul against Sligo last Sunday week.
The fourth estate had remained on to reflect on a majestically entertaining provincial decider, but more because to join the miles of traffic exiting Castlebar was a pointless exercise when one’s work could be done just as easily in the magnificent facilities that McHale Park now boasts.
No one, however, was able provide an answer to the question and so to sate curiosity I dug out the record books this past week.
It turns out that all of 26 years had passed since Shine’s magic 10 points were matched, and it was a Mayo man who managed that. Kevin McStay struck 1-7 for the Green and Red against Galway in 1984. Another Mayo man, Joe McGrath, actually bettered 10 points in the 1979 provincial decider when scoring 2-5.
Good n’all as their achievements were, to have actually raised a double-digit number of flags, ie, score 10 times or more, is a much rarer achievement, and Shine became the first player to do so in a Connacht Final since Mickey Kearns struck 0-13 against Galway in 1971.
Records suggest they are the only two players ever to achieve that. But as the last three players before Shine to score 10 points or more in a Connacht final, do you know what else Kevin McStay, Joe McGrath and Mickey Kearns have in common with each other but not with Donal Shine?
It’s that those three players never ended those games on the winning team, despite their scoring feats. Mayo were beaten 2-13 to 2-9 by Galway in 1984 despite McStay’s 1-7 (1-0pen, 6f), Mayo were beaten 3-15 to 2-10 by Roscommon in 1979 despite McGrath’s 2-5 and amazingly, Kearns’ 0-13 contribution in 1971 was only good enough to earn Sligo a draw with Galway.
The Yeats men lost the replay when Seamus Leydon also reached double figures, scoring 1-7 for the Tribesmen. Leydon, in fact, for as long as our records show, is the only other player ever to score double figures in a Connacht Final – but his ’71 achievement was merely a replication of what he scored in the 1963 final also, when his 3-1 helped Galway to victory over Mayo in Castlebar. That remains the last time any player scored three goals in a Connacht Final.
So, with Roscommon upsetting the favourites to win this year’s Nestor Cup, Shine broke a cycle that stretched as far back as 39 years, that of players scoring 10 points or more and still failing to finish on the Connacht title-winning team.
Main News Page |
Previous Page
|
|
|
|
Facebook
