TV View: Dublin deliver shock of the season to leave us all bewildered
Limerick
beat
Cork
by 16 points you suggested that just five weeks later they'd be knocked out of the championship by a
Dublin
side down a man after 14 minutes, you'd have been sent to a home for the bewildered.
Did you ever see the like? And be honest now, how many of you went out for some sun after Chris Crummey was sent off, making the assumption that, thereafter, Dublin would be pulverised?
If it wasn't for the need to drop back indoors for another bottle of Factor 100, we'd have been none the wiser about what was unfolding, Darragh Maloney and Brendan Cummins' hollers on the telly alerting us to the drama. The new batch of freckles could wait.
The Dubs, somehow, were three points up at the break, Joanne Cantwell's Gaelic Grounds-based panel mightily impressed by their efforts. But as Dónal Óg Cusack noted, 'can you imagine what's being said in the Limerick dressingroom?'
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Exactly. Fireworks. So, the Dubs' delirium would be short-lived, Limerick would step it up a gear or eight in the second half, normal service would be resumed, and that'd be that for the plucky underdogs. Except, as Darragh asked after those two Dublin goals in a minute, 'WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?'
You know the way sport can, occasionally, leave your jaw on the floor? This was one of those days, nothing more jaw-dropping than Seán Brennan denying Aaron Gillane that goal, there ending the save-of-the-season competition.
By then, Hill 16 had filled up with the football crew who had arrived for
Dublin's meeting with Cork
, when at the start of the game there'd have been space to lay out a heap of picnic blankets and sun loungers.
'And how many times have we seen Dublin football followers drifting in to see a Dublin hurling team get the last rites,' asked Dónal Óg come full-time. On this occasion, they had been administered to Limerick's 2025 championship hopes.
It was, in a word, sensational
.
Later in the evening, Damian Lawlor wondered if it was hurling's Séamus Darby moment. At the very least, 'is this the greatest day in Dublin hurling history and one of the greatest results in GAA history,' he asked Liam Rushe. 'Yeah, it's definitely up there,' he said, although he reminded Damian that the county had a few All-Ireland titles to its name. Mind you, only those pushing 90 would remember the last one.
Rushe experienced a fair sprinkling of good days in the Dublin shirt too, but not too many saw this one coming. 'To think this morning I was at training and people were asking me would we cover the 12 point handicap,' he laughed. 'An absolutely massive shock.' Rare auld times indeed.
Back at the Gaelic Grounds, Tipp and Galway's supporters were celebrating Limerick's demise while waiting for their own counties to square up, Galway following Limerick out the championship exit door come full-time. 'It was all a little bit flat,' said Joanne. 'Jeez, I don't often say this Joanne,' Dónal Óg sighed, 'but thanks be to God that's over'. It had, though, a hard act to follow.
A view of the pitch ahead of the Lions v Argentina at the Aviva Stadium. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho
If the Dubs fought like lions, the Lions were, well, a bit kitten-like on Friday night,
Argentina ruining their big Australia send-off
. And TG4 and Sky had given the game the mother of all build-ups too, Donal Lenihan among a string of folk who popped up on TG4 to reflect on their touring memories.
It was only recently that he was rummaging around his attic, probably looking for Christmas tree lights, when he found not one but four boomerangs that he didn't even know he had. But sure, which one of us doesn't have four boomerangs in the attic? Not many, mind, brought them back from Australia after winning the 1989 series.
Sky's team is exceptionally excited about this tour. 'All three tests are live on Sky Sports – just saying it makes you tingle,' as commentator Miles Harrison put it during their four hours of coverage of an 80 minute game. And the 'destination' of the current crop of Lions, asserted Will Greenwood, was 'a place in sporting history'.
That might be arguable, seeing as they won in Australia before. Real sporting history would be, say, the Dubs doing the Double. If you'd even mentioned that possibility before Saturday afternoon, your address would, yes, now be: 'The Home for the Bewildered'.
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