Michael Moynihan

THERE were a few interesting side shows in Croke Park yesterday for the All-Ireland club finals.

For one thing, it was intriguing to see the reluctance of some of our northern colleagues to take in the All-Ireland club hurling final.

We don’t take it personally, like we’re responsible for the game – Croke Park has people who are employed to spread the gospel of the small ball – but it was surprising all the same. You’d imagine that if you had any game, or sporting event, featuring acknowledged masters at work that you’d take at least a passing interest. We’re not that interested in golf, but if Tiger Woods was playing - (Stop, you and golf? Nobody would believe that – Ed.)

Okay, fair enough. Golf isn’t a great example. It was just surprising. Still, not as if those boys pick the hurling All-Stars or anything, is it?

(Surely something slightly more interesting than that happened? – Ed.)

Actually, it did. We don’t know if the TV pictures conveyed this, but it was actually quite warm in Croke Park yesterday.
We raise this matter because the temperature of the microclimate around Jones Road habitually hits a nadir on St Patrick’s Day, as though the nearby parade through O’Connell Street creates some kind of cold vortex over the stadium even as the club finalists draw up in their buses.

In 2006 we almost froze to death watching Portumna beat Newtownshandrum in the hurling final; yesterday’s football winners St Gall’s lost narrowly to Salthill-Knocknacarra of Galway on the same afternoon.

You think that’s an exaggeration. You’re wrong. During the week Aodhan Gallagher of St Gall’s was asked for his abiding memory of the day. Despite the fact that he lost a heartbreaking club final that afternoon, his answer was emphatic: the cold.

For yesterday’s balmy eleven or twelve degrees, much thanks.

We also saw proof of Moynihan’s Theorem of Post-Match Interviews Part Six: the man picked to talk to the press is always bleeding from a finger.   Yesterday Eamonn Walsh, the captain of Ballyhale Shamrocks, pitched up in the GAA Museum auditorium to have a chat with us, there among the posters showing naked Celtic warriors slaking their bloodlusts on the Fir Bolgs and whatnot (as someone said: do they leave children come in here?).
True to form, one of Walsh’s fingers looked like a squirrel had tried to gnaw it off. It was the same after the Ballyhale-Newtownshandrum semi-final in Thurles: your correspondent had lurked obtrusively by the Kilkenny club’s dressing-room in order to catch one of the sick or elderly who were at the back of the herd, when Cha Fitzpatrick suddenly materialised.
At such moments it’s customary to stick a hand out and congratulate the player, but Cha had a half-repaired gash across his knuckles; we say half-repaired because it looked as though he’d sewn the wound together holding a needle and thread between his teeth.

We improvised by shoving the tape recorder into his face and it looked as though we’d make a clean getaway, but they obviously rear them properly in Ballyhale. Just as we turned off the machine, Cha stuck a hand out and we shook.

Eamonn Walsh, if you’re reading this, now you understand yesterday’s hasty goodbye.