John Fogarty: March madness strikes football league

Ten ways March Madness swept across all four divisions:

1. Never mind a team topping Division 1 with a single-figure total of points, one doing so with an inferior score difference takes some doing. Just to put Mayo’s achievement into perspective, first-placed Derry had a return of +38 last year and Mayo’s was +24 when they finished above everyone else. There is little to compare to such a phenomenon but 23 years ago Roscommon headed Division 1A with a -2 return.

2. Tyrone going down despite picking up seven league points. The margins were so fine for Malachy O’Rourke and the new rules played their part – lack of punishment for black card offences before Round 6, the three-up infringement against Galway. Six has always been considered the magic number. One of four teams tied on six points, Cork in 2016 were the last team to exit the top flight on that total.

3. In three of their seven games including their last two outings, Kerry failed to score a two-pointer. Courtesy of their 16 goals, they were the highest scorers in Division 1 but did not avail as much of a rule that would appear to be made for them. Not that it mattered as they look to claim the new cup named after Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh and keep up Jack O’Connor’s record of league-championship doubles.

4. The turnover in the Limerick football squad is massive enough to be noted as they qualified from Division 4 – 16 new players this season alone. However, the astonishing 4-12 posted by James Naughton against Waterford on Sunday goes down as the greatest individual tally by a footballer in a senior inter-county game. It pipped Tyrone’s Frankie Donnelly’s 4-11 against Fermanagh in a Lagan Cup fixture in 1957 (Naughton’s single two-pointed free a vital score). In 2020, Cillian O'Connor accumulated 4-9 against Tipperary in an All-Ireland semi-final.  Wexford great Mattie Forde scored 4-5 against Galway in a Division 1B game in 2004. David Clifford’s highest total in a game so far? His 3-6 against Galway in the 2021 league.

5. Mad in a good way that a Mickey Harte-managed side has gained promotion or earned a final place for the fourth time in five seasons – Louth (2021, ’22), Derry last year and Offaly this time around. Take into account his first year with Tyrone in 2023 when they finished top of Division 1A before winning the top flight final and the man’s instant Midas touch is enduring. Providing he remains at the helm with Declan Kelly next year, he will face his three former counties in Division 2.

6. Pat Ryan described the Division 1A hurling final as the one “nobody wants to be in” but his remarks could easily have been ascribed to the football decider. Jim McGuinness shouted “whoa horsey” like nobody’s business these last two weekends. Across the Tyrone and Mayo defeats, he started 25 different players not including captain Patrick McBrearty, Shaun Patton, Michael Langan, Oisín Gallen or Eoghan Bán Gallagher and Jason McGee who are returning from injury. Galway’s interests in Croke Park this weekend may have waned when they heard how Dublin were being hosed in Omagh. The thoughts of facing Mayo twice in the space of five weeks didn’t appeal as much.

7. Clare miss out on promotion despite beating the two teams with whom they finished on the same number of points. After his side defeated Offaly on Sunday to follow up their win over Kildare, manager Peter Keane bemoaned how score difference denied his side ascension into Division 2. Granted, Clare’s victories both came at home and when there is an uneven amount of home and away games score difference is perhaps the better means of splitting sides. Under the mini-league criteria as used by several counties and Leinster for their senior hurling championship, The Banner would have gone up along with Offaly.

8. “Who would send that team to Division 1?” decried a dyed-in-the-wool but practical Cavan supporter about his team following their close shave with promotion on Sunday. Had Dara McVeety’s late two-pointer gone over, Cavan were promoted. Be careful what you wish for.

9. Not for the first time in this league, a hosting county (Mayo) were unable to include the opposition’s team (Donegal) in the match programme as they had not received it in time. The same situation occurred in Tyrone last month when Kerry’s team was delayed. Team announcements in the league at least are routinely examples of fake news. Expectations placed on managers to be accurate are too much. Announce squad numbers and be done with it.

10. Four counties – Roscommon, Limerick, Mayo and Wexford – playing provincial championship the weekend after their divisional finals.

john.fogarty@examiner.ie 

Goal-crazy Cork and Kerry send out signals

There’s sending out a statement and then there’s transmitting a signal. Cork won’t care so long as the goals keep coming but have they given their opponents an idea of how to counter them?

Ten goals in their last two games is a remarkable return for Pat Ryan’s side but it could now convince teams to sit back against them. There’s every chance they can adapt to that – against Limerick in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, they showed they can win from distance – but it will be important to them they don’t become over-reliant on goals.

Cork might say they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. There was a time when they were guilty of taking the handy point instead of working a goal opportunity.

Under Kieran Kingston, there was an emphasis put on that shift towards becoming more ruthless. Spurning goal chances was part of their downfall against Galway in the 2022 All-Ireland quarter-final but Kingston qualified: “Missing a goal, we don't ever see that as a mistake.

“If taking a shot is the right thing then we would encourage that. If it's a miss it's a miss. I would never criticise players for making a mistake or having a miss when they are doing the right thing."

Football-wise, Kerry brought their goal tally in Division 1 this year to 16. “That is good going in seven games,” said Jack O’Connor. But he would also know the perils in relying on them too much. Prior to taking the position for a third time, he felt the county team were too dependent on them in 2021. “It didn’t do Kerry any favours that they scored all these goals all year. I think they had something like 21. That gets into players’ heads, right.” 

If some pragmatism is preached in the Kerry and Cork training sessions this week, it won’t go wasted.

The link between the handpass and head-high fouls 

“James Mahon has been cleared to play in Offaly’s Division 1B final against Waterford.” We’re being presumptuous but hopefully correct that the defender’s red card in Saturday’s clash with the Déise will be overturned by the Central Hearings Committee later this week.

Mahon’s challenge on Gavin Fives in Walsh Park was not worthy of a red card and he rightly will be considered a victim as referees crack down on head-high challenges in the latter stages of the league.

On that note, it's Conor O’Donovan’s assertion that amending the hand-pass to be completed by the non-holding hand or by first touching the ball on the sliotar would lend to less head-high fouls.

“Players would be more inclined to play the ball early rather than taking it into the tackle, thereby avoiding the increased risk of being dispossessed,” the former Tipperary full-back argues. “One rule tackling two problems.” 

The likes of the Hurling Development Committee claimed O’Donovan’s hand-pass amendment, which was defeated at Congress last month, would increase the amount rucks but surely as O’Donovan says players would be more determined to transfer the ball before being pinned. Food for thought as well as the vast number of uncertified, unsafe helmets being worn by leading inter-county players.

Fógra – Kilkenny’s The Rower-Inistioge lost one of their great members Richie Tierney on Saturday. From mentor to executive, Richie filled almost every role in his beloved club and was an impressive chairman in recent years. He was known as the great organiser, a man whose volunteer spirit was as fierce as his passion for hurling. To his family and abundance of friends, our sincerest condolences.