[caption id="attachment_70383" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Donegal's Michael Murphy and Colm McFadden tackle Ger Brennan of Dublin during the All Ireland semifinal at Croke Park last summer."]
Donegal didn’t win any friends outside of their own county when they put in an ultra defensive performance against Dublin in the All-Ireland football semifinal at Croke Park last August. By playing 14 men behind the ball for most of the game they frustrated a Dublin side, who took a long time to break through their defensive wall before eventually winning a low scoring game by eight points to six. Amazingly Donegal could have won that game had Colin McFadden’s shot early in the second half have gone under instead of over the bar.
Pat Spillane had described Tyrone’s defensive style as “puke football” a few years earlier, but I can’t remember how the former Kerry player described the tactics used by Donegal manager Jim McGuinness last year. McGuinness did a great bonding job with the Donegal squad in his first year in charge and they won division two of the League and the Ulster final. But this year they are having mixed luck in division one. On Saturday night Donegal return to Croke Park to play Dublin in the League and it will be interesting to see what formation McGuinness adopts. Kerry manager Jack O’Connor feels that Donegal’s defensive style can be broken by what he calls “clever football.” He said: ‘‘No matter how much you get bodies back, with a bit of clever rotation of the ball you can always get men free. We worked very hard and spoke a lot about this the week before the game against Donegal in Killarney. It’s about being clever on the ball and slipping the ball to the support runner.’’ Dublin look very impressive at Croke Park against Armagh two weeks ago, but they suffered a setback last week when losing to Down in Newry, while Donegal picked up two more points at home to Mayo last Sunday. So it should be an interesting game.
This will be the last of the Dublin County Board’s double header spring series, with the pointless Dublin hurlers playing Tipperary at 5pm and the footballers lining out against Donegal at 7.15pm. That means a 50 minute gap between the games which may be fine for those sitting in the corporate boxes, but probably a bit too long if you are standing on Hill 16. However, the entertainment should be good on Saturday with the Dubliners booked to provide the interval act.
MEDIA TARGET
GAA: DUFFY
In his annual report for next month’s Congress, GAA Director General Páraic Duffy has hit out at media coverage of the row that occurred during the All-Ireland junior club semifinal between Dromid Pearses and Derrytresk in Portlaoise earlier this year. The Monaghan man says the difference between what occurred and what certain media outlets reported was disappointing. Duffy said: ‘‘The final factor contributing to the particular environment in which the Association operates these days is visible in certain mind-sets with regard to the GAA. One need only examine the excessive coverage of the incidents at the All-Ireland junior club semifinal in Portlaoise. These were disagreeable incidents, and no-one in authority in the GAA will seek to minimize what occurred. But the gap between what actually occurred and the presentation of what occurred was conspicuous. The incident became an unmissable opportunity in certain quarters to target the GAA and to indulge in the crudest forms of stereotyping of supporters of Gaelic games.’’
The incidents got huge coverage on phone-in programs on radio and in the print media, but then there was very little GAA action in the month of January and it was big news at the time especially as Dromid’s Declan O’Sullivan was hit with a handbag by a female supporter.
Duffy also said he is worried that GAA coverage might be reduced this summer with the Euro 2012 soccer finals plus the Olympics in London.
CROKER MAY FEATURE
IN RUGBY WORLD CUP
Peter McKenna, the GAA’s Stadium Director says that he has no doubt that the GAA would look favourably on any request from the Irish Rugby Union to use Croke Park if they go ahead with a bid to host the 2023 Rugby World Cup finals. McKenna said: ‘‘We haven’t had a formal approach from the IRFU, but I’m sure our management committee would look at this in terms of national interest. A World Cup final would bring thousands of people to Ireland. None of us live in a bubble. We all live in an Irish economy and if the economy is down we all suffer. Anything that lifts it needs serious consideration.’’
MCMANUS TAKES
GOLD CUP
It wasn’t the best Cheltenham National Hunt Festival for the Irish with only five Irish-trained winners, compared to 13 in 2011.But it was a festival that Limerick-born J.P. McManus won’t forget for some time. McManus’s horse Synchronised ridden by Ireland’s Tony McCoy and trained in England by Cork-born Jonjo O’Neill, won the Gold Cup. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. McManus, who now spends most of his time in Switzerland, owns several horses and is a great supporter of the sport. Meath-born Barry Geraghty was the top jockey and on second day of the festival all seven winners were ridden by Irish jockeys.
It was also a festival to remember for Cork-born Conor Murphy, who is assistant Head Lad with English trainer Nicky Henderson. Last Christmas Murphy placed a €60 euro accumulator bet on five horses from Henderson’s Lambourn yard to win at Cheltenham and they all came up. Coincidentally all five winners were all ridden by Barry Geraghty and the win yielded Murphy €1.2 million, but the 28 year-old from Ballineen in West Cork was back at work in Lambourn on Thursday at 5.30am.
