Dublin-Galway brightens up ‘disappointing’ weekend

Éamonn Fitzmaurice is hoping that the All-Ireland SFC semi-finals can make up for an underwhelming weekend of fare in the last eight, where Galway’s win over Dublin provided an isolated highlight.

Armagh, Donegal and Kerry also advanced to the penultimate stage of the competition, but their victories won’t linger long in the memories of neutrals or football purists.

“It was disappointing, there’s no point saying otherwise,” Fitzmaurice told listeners of RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

“I was at all the games over the weekend and obviously the Dublin-Galway game was a standout, there was loads of good football and it was a really competitive game.

“The Kerry-Derry game yesterday was a grim watch. That’s what the talk was after the game, but that won’t bother the Kerry players or management.

“They just wanted to get into an All-Ireland semi-final and they felt that was the way the had to deal with the way Derry set up, but in general it was probably a disappointing weekend football-wise, which is a hard thing to say because on Friday I was really looking forward to the games, I felt we were going to get a great weekend of football.

“It’s kind of like that at the moment, if you attend four games you’ve a good chance of one very good game, maybe two, and then the other two might not be so good.

“We’re eternal optimists, so we’ll look forward to the semi-finals weekend and hopefully we’ll get two crackers there.”

Fitzmaurice attributed Galway’s come-from-behind win over Dublin to two traits, namely “their resilience and their defiance”, with the performance conjuring up memories of a Dublin footballer in a different code.

“I made the point in my column in the Irish Examiner this morning that they reminded me in many ways of Paul McGrath in Giants Stadium 30 years ago against Italy,” the analyst said. “They just weren’t going to be beaten, they were just defiant.

“They had a load of players who played well and even when they had injuries to the likes of Sean Kelly and Shane Walsh had to go off in the end, they were led brilliantly.

“I thought Cillian McDaid was just standout. He was absolutely outstanding. He started well, but as the game went on and, particularly in the second half, he was just at another level.

“When he’s playing at that level, similar to the level he was playing at two years ago when Galway were so close in the All-Ireland final, Galway are just a different team with him playing like that.”

The overwhelming feeling for many leaving Croke Park was that Dublin’s defeat was an era-ending one, with speculation that many of the county’s decorated veterans will hang up their inter-county boots.

“If they do decide to step away, some of them, they were fantastic servants and they were great, great players, some of the best that we’ve ever seen,” Fitzmaurice added.