Yesterday was football at its best - Five takeaways from last weekend in the Super 8s

Galway are now a proper championship team.

Yesterday was football at its best - Five takeaways from last weekend in the Super 8s

By Kieran Shannon

Galway are now a proper championship team

It’s no coincidence that the two teams already assured of an All-Ireland semi-final spot are the two that made it to this year’s Division 1 final. Galway, along with Dublin naturally, have been ticking virtually every box in the old manual Mickey Harte wrote with Paddy Tally 15 years ago on how a team goes from talented-but-unreliable contestants into legitimate challengers — even champions — within the course of a season.

Win on the road in the league. Win at home in the league — give yourself no permission to lose. Go as far as you can in the league. Win your province. Also, if the challenge is presented to you, win on the road in the championship, preferably the type of game you’d have lost a year or two earlier.

That’s what made yesterday such another milestone for Kevin Walsh’s men. Newbridge is no easy place to win — ask Mayo — yet Galway went into the lion’s den and emerged as unscathed as Daniel, emboldened from winning not just in Castlebar in the championship, but in places, such as Letterkenny, Tralee and, not insignificantly, Newbridge in what was technically a dead-rubber during the league. There’s a hardiness about them now and quite an edge too; it’s not coincidental either, the number of red cards opponents are picking up from lashing back at Galway men not averse to afters, though after Daniel Flynn’s latest illustration of the frustration-aggression hypothesis, it’s a trend officials may soon notice and curb.

We still think they’re a bit more like Cork 2009, Dublin 2010, Donegal 2011 and Mayo 2012 than Tyrone 2003, but like those sides it’s going to take a proper heavyweight to get the verdict over them this year and in future years there might be none at all, with them the ones in the centre of the ring, their hand being held aloft. And by the way, expect them to identify their final Super 8 game as another measure of their true champion bona fides.

Tyrone v Donegal is going to be the mother of all...

The previous two occasions that Tyrone had to go up to Ballybofey in the championship, the date was red-circled eight months in advance from the moment the draw was made, the prospect giving sustenance to Gaels from Gweedore to Ardboe to even Tallow over the long winter, a throwback to the old do-or-die days. As it would turn out, though, both those first-round games in 2013 and 2015 were of dubious merit. Although at the time they were played as if nothing else mattered, it turned out both Donegal victories more underlined their Ulster championship triumph from the previous season rather than facilitate the retention of the Anglo-Celt that particular summer. Both seasons, Donegal were foiled by Monaghan in the Ulster final and then by Mayo in the All-Ireland quarter-final. Tyrone, meanwhile, made it through to the All-Ireland semi-finals. There had been nothing do-or-die about Ballybofey, but boy is this year’s clash up there all-or-nothing. In fact, it’s safe to say it’s the biggest all-Ulster championship match the province has hosted since 2000, when a Derry team who were reigning league champions went up against an Armagh team who were reigning Ulster champions in the last pre-backdoor provincial final. If Donegal win, Tyrone can’t make the All-Ireland semi-final this time.

At the moment, Tyrone look the side best-placed to trouble Dublin in Croke Park, yet not good enough to end Donegal’s remarkable record in Ballybofey. Thankfully, we don’t have to wait eight months for this one.

The enigma and brilliance of Ódran Mac Niallias

Michael Murphy rightly commanded most of the plaudits in Hyde Park last Saturday, his performance underlining that whatever about Donegal being better with him operating at full forward rather than roaming around the field, football itself certainly is.

However, what was also notable and delightful to watch was the performance of another player inside who we’re more familiar with playing further out the field. By kicking a point off either foot, Ódran Mac Niallais reminded us of how he has previously evoked comparisons and memories of everyone, from Enda Muldoon and Maurice Fitzgerald to Diarmuid Connolly, though those largely shook off the erratic tag that still hovers over Mac Niallais, but what was particularly striking about how he swung those scores over was just how comfortable and formidable he looked with his back to goal and on the turn. He won’t get anywhere like the same space against Tyrone, but positioning him in there, at least for a while, seems as shrewd and as good a move as you can make to compensate for the absence of Paddy McBrearty. When Donegal have previously made All-Ireland semi-finals, they’ve always had lethal inside tandems. Sweeney-Devenney. McFadden-Murphy. McBrearty-Murphy. Mac Niallais-Murphy also has a nice ring to it.

The Super 8s — and football — might yet have a future

Now that was more like it, wasn’t it? Before yesterday Kildare/Mayo had probably been the game of the championship. By 3.40pm it was no longer the best game we’ve had in Newbridge, yet two hours later Galway/Kildare had no longer even been the best game of the day. Monaghan-Kerry was fantasy football in so many ways. How often have we speculated over the years how Kerry would fare having to go up to Clones during the summer (or the Dubs in somewhere like Omagh?). Or Conor McManus going up against a Division One defence, not just in the league or Croke Park, but his home patch, in front of his own? Yesterday was football at its best. Played at the right venue, in the right spirit, and in the right way.

A little sense of history repeating in Kerry

When Kieran Donaghy with his paw knocked that ball down to David Clifford to goal, it invariably conjured up the memory of his famous assist to James O’Donoghue at the death against Mayo in 2014. Yet, as brilliantly as the play underlined Donaghy’s phenomenal presence and persistence, what can be overlooked but shouldn’t be was the delivery into him. James O’Donoghue’s kick was as immaculate as David Moran’s four years ago. It was propelled with backspin, affording Donaghy the optimum chance to read and get to the ball. O’Donoghue has become something of a peripheral, even forgotten, figure in this campaign, a bit like Donaghy was in 2014, but in remembering how Star bolted back into the frame, he may have done likewise.

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