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“How,” asks Darragh Ó Sé, “do you go from being six points up in the 57th minute against Cork and cruising to an All-Ireland quarter-final to needing to beat Galway in Salthill to stay in the championship?”
Mayo are, no doubt, still asking themselves the same question as they prepare for Sunday’s all-or-nothing trip to take on their neighbours. “Even by their own standards of making life hard for themselves,” says Darragh, “this takes the biscuit.”
So, “come Sunday evening,” writes Gordon Manning, “one of the leading contenders to lift Sam Maguire will instead be packing up their tent for the year.” As Galway’s Matthew Tierney tells him, “it’s do or die now”.
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While it had no end of critics, the round-robin phase of the championship turned out to be “a lot less predictable than I – and I daresay, even Croke Park itself – had foreseen,” writes Seán Moran. He’s not arguing that it was an unqualified success, but reckons that it is now “unlikely to be subject to a panicky fix”, the GAA most probably going to give it the full three years to assess its merits.
After the Republic of Ireland’s defeat by Greece last Friday, there was no end of chat about the FAI needing to do some panicky fixing themselves, namely the replacing of Stephen Kenny with Lee Carsley.
Kenny, though, came out fighting after Monday’s win over Gibraltar, Gavin Cummiskey hearing the manager defend his record. “I’ve made brave decisions in the best interests of Irish football, okay? And I’ve made good decisions. I’m very strong and very resilient ... I don’t need to listen to anyone’s opinions to know what I want and what I am.”
He’s unlikely, then, to have listened to Liam Brady when he described Kenny’s squad as “the worst group of players that any manager has had in my lifetime”. Now that Brady has retired from his work with RTÉ, David Gorman looks at the next generation of soccer punditry in Ireland.
In horse racing, Brian O’Connor predicted yesterday that it was “a matter of when and not if” Aidan O’Brien broke the record for the most number of winners at Royal Ascot. Hardly had Brian stopped typing and the feat was achieved – O’Brien’s opening day double saw him pass Michael Stoute’s mark.
Telly watch: After a nightmare start to their World Cup qualifying efforts in Zimbabwe, when they lost to Oman on Monday, Ireland’s cricketers are back in action this morning against Scotland (Sky Sports Cricket from 7.30am) – losing two wickets in the first over wasn’t an ideal start. Later, Virgin Media One (1.30-5.30) and Two (5.25-6.30) have more coverage from Royal Ascot.
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