Tag: Derek Lyng
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Treat people like fools and you’ll look like one yourself
Exhibit A: Clones, July 1993, what was to become known as the mudbath Ulster (SFC) Final. How St Tiarnach’s Park was ever passed as playable I’ll never know. It can only be assumed whoever arrived at the decision came from a land of draught. Exhibit B: Dunboyne, May, 2002. A hotly anticipated local derby between…
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The real Super Sunday delivers but also highlights glaring unfairness
“I didn’t interrupt you, boy”. And there it was, Donal Og Cusack’s arrogant ignorance got in the way of meaningful analysis and reasoned debate. Worse still, he was let away with it by Joanne Cantwell. But then, how she ended up with the most prized job in Irish sports broadcasting ahead of either Jacqui Hurley,…
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Two sparkling stars in a glittering galaxy
Their journeys were always intertwined. Joy for one generally meant despair for the other. Never more than when a very harsh dose of red mist for one denied him and his colleagues hurling immortality. To the greatest benefit of the adversary with whom the stage will be divided for the remainder of what you take…
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Don’t try to figure it out just admire it
Limerick…0-30 Kilkenny…2-15 Any hurling aficionados among you might recognise the above headline. It has been here before. On the occasion Meath defeated Antrim for the first time in the Christy Ring Cup Final some years back before a re-fixture was ordered over some cock up with the full time score. But Meath were so good…
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Old Cats for the well travelled road
Kilkenny… 1-25 Clare… 1-22 In the aftermath of Kilkenny’s victory in the Leinster SHC Final against Galway, one photo in particular attracted mass attention. The chap from Bredagh in Co Down who was kitted out as TJ Reid for a stag do, and because of same was able to blag his way past security and…
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The best day of the sporting year
Dear Larry McCarthy, Please leave well enough alone. Thank you. The dust had hardly settled on the best day of the sporting year when the outgoing GAA President started blurting about fixing it that the Leinster and Munster SHC Finals wouldn’t be on the same day again. Utter idiocy. It’s not as if people attending…
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Three superstars, a plethora of penalties and fairytales not finished yet
A winter’s day, in a deep and dark December. A scenario (Ladies) teams in Meath have got used to. Early Christmas presents. In Meath’s case, an All Ireland IFC win. On the club scene, that meant our history making ladies capturing the Leinster Club SFC this time last year. This year, December action from a…
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The baseball cap finally retires to the peg
There are things in life which, even though you know they are coming, you are never quite ready for it. In Meath, that day arrived in September 2005 when Sean Boylan announced he wasn’t going forward for a 24th season as senior football manager. Hindsight, of course, has proven that it should never have come…
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The GAA’s poor relations
When a ‘Back Door’ system was first introduced to hurling in 1997, aside from the usual and expected negative, entrenched, old-fashioned mindsets declaring it the ruination of hurling as we knew it, the other fascinating factor was the fixtures it threw up. In that sense, the meeting of Tipperary and Down. As a contest, of…