It also caught my attention that not one man from Ulster has reffed an All-Ireland Hurling final for the Liam MacCarthy Cup. Not one. Even a Mayo man has been picked to blow the whistle in the final. Mayo! The last time I saw a Mayo man with a hurl in his hand he was trying to beat a rat out of a bale-stack whilst travelling to Knock in ’82. Now, I don’t know if there’s some kind of mistrust of the Ulster hurling fraternity at Headquarters but it’s time the Ulster Council addressed this, even if it means doing a Gerry Kinneavy and getting one of the lads up here to change his name and county overnight in order to fool the lads in Dublin. Worth considering, and a big boost to the game up here it would be. Hurling in Ulster during 2009 wasn’t the best. Antrim tried their hand at two provincial competitions but their trip to Leinster wasn’t too productive at all. At least they got a trip to the brewery and enjoyed the Literary Pub Tour the night before the game. Listening to Sambo recite ‘THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS’ with the emotion dripping off him at 3am made this old hack swallow hard to hide the lump in my throat. You wouldn’t catch Cody at that and it’s a pity for him.
Back up here, Antrim stood by whilst the rest of the province tore shreds off each other with misplaced pulls and cuts. By the time Down emerged to play the Saffrons in Antrim’s one and only game, they were hardly able to run onto the field such was their exhaustion. There’s some unfair about this. Take Fermanagh for example. Say if those lads were hurling in private at a hideaway 3D surface at a camouflaged shed near Tempo seven days a week from January til May, trained by Michael Lyster or Pat Kenny, and emerged as potential champions, they’d have to have beaten this year: Cavan, London, Derry and then Down before taking on Antrim in the final, in Antrim’s first game. Sure isn’t it not a wonder they don’t bother taking it seriously at all. Imagine Antrim heading down to Belleek in early May on an oul soggy pitch and meeting fifteen Fermanagh men blowing steam from their ears from training 200 consecutive days. Stranger things have happened and it’s worth the looking at.
Donegal and Tyrone did raise the spirits though when they contested the Lory Meagher final in Croke Park for teams that don’t really know the rules at all. It was a tremendous contest, spoiled only by the Limerick man beside me who said it was like watching the Primary Schools competition at half time in a big game. Whether it was or not, it was great seeing two Ulster teams clash the ash in Croke park for a trophy although the Tyrone folk are hard enough to stick winning the odd Sam without having other reasons to boast. In club hurling the St Gall’s lads reaffirmed their own belief that they’re superstars wading through the mediocrity of Antrim GAA in both codes. An All-Ireland title at Intermediate level almost sat alongside the senior football gong. An inability and reluctance to walk down the Falls Rd almost befell supporters of the Johnnies, Rossa and Pauls if that scenario had succeeded. Dunloy earned the right to lose an All-Ireland Semi-Final the following February after an heroic extra-time defeat in all likelihood.
As you can see, 2009 wasn’t all that inspiring and we feared what 2010 would bring. However, there are always the positives. 102 years ago, in 1910, the Ulster Champions were drawn to meet a Glasgow team made up of Irish ex-pats. This was a chance for Antrim to get the cobwebs out of the road before taking on Dublin in the semis. Glasgow won, 1-13 to 0-7, in Belfast. So if you think things were bad now, progress has undoubtedly been made since that fateful day along the banks of the Lagan a century ago. Let’s not end on a negative note. When Antrim reached the 1943 All-Ireland Final, the Antrim captain Jimmy Walsh presented some butter to the Cork captain Mick Kennefick, who handed over a quantity of tea to his northern counterpart. Maybe we need to assess what was the reason for Antrim’s lofty standing then. Generosity. Why not offer Shefflin a Belfast Bap next year before the start? 2012. Loughgeil. We salute you.
