Colm Keys: The hurling party gets bigger and better, but the best is yet to come

] The few 10,000 empty seats around Croke Park on Sunday reminded a rural club team that has made a breakthrough to win an intermediate football championship that will end in court.

In the early hours of the morning after the triumph of the team, the village pub was still crowded when local guards called.

Some of the most eminent members of the parish were welcomed. rear window, the rest ready to deal with the consequences like 'found ons'. A few weeks later, in front of a district court sitting in a nearby town, about twenty members of the club were waiting to hear their fate.

Without representation, a lawyer known as a storyteller agreed to defend himself, pointing out to the judge the importance of what had happened, how much it had meant for the local population, and concluding his defense with him. badertion that it was those from the same parish who were NOT that night at the pub that should have been in the dock at that time! 19659005] The case was duly dismissed

71,073 were at Croke Park on Sunday, 54,191 the previous night for Clare and Galway [19659005] The miracle was that there were empty places at Croke Park this week not just those of competing counties that have stayed out of the way, but whoever would be interested even in the sport would have gotten something out of it.

Maybe missing the opportunity does not deserve a visit from a local magistrate for crimes against the locality but you get the drift – t These are opportunities not to be missed, opportunities that, rarely, if ever, fail.

Ruthless

We have been properly notified. Take the last five rounds of All-Ireland semifinals, dating back to 2014. How much have been less than memorable? At most, two – the ruthless demolition of Tipperary from a failed Cork in 2014 and the meeting between Kilkenny and Waterford in 2015.

The other nine, including the 2016 replay between Kilkenny and Waterford, were exciting exciting and superlative.

Three of the nine (Kilkenny / Waterford 2016, Clare / Galway 2018 and Cork / Limerick 2018) finished the level after the regulation of more than 70 minutes, the trilogy of the games from 2015 to 2017 between Tipperary and Galway were all decided at one point while two others (Kilkenny / Waterford 2016 Replay and Kilkenny / Limerick 2014) were two-point games. Only Cork / Waterford last year came out of this particular scenario, but even that had its own brand of drama and cardiac arrest moments.

By comparison, with the exception of the two in 2014, the All-Ireland finals on this same five The time of year was not up to par, although both in 2013 and the three that Kilkenny and Tipperary played between 2009 and 2011.

Like a screaming pack this weekend is undeniably unprecedented, surpbading the Wexford 1996 intermediate match Leinster vs. Offaly, 2-23 to 2-15 , who placed them on the way to All-Ireland glory was played on the same Sunday. On the afternoon of July, Limerick took Tipperary in a memorable final recovery from Munster to Párc Uí Chaoimh but that did not reach the weekend's altitude.

You now know the numbers – 130 scores, more than 210 chances to score wide and shots fell short of those glorious moments from Peter Duggan's point of view for ages at the moment of Nickie Quaid's memorable flight on Seamus Harnedy.

Whenever a ball was out, it seemed, over the weekend, a score, or at least an opportunity make sure to follow in the next 20 to 30 seconds. In this respect, Quaid's deliveries were just a little more liberating for Limerick

In a global context, the season had not even reached the first Sunday of July and these two provincial finals while she was there. had already been widely recognized as the largest. already. And think that the round-robin format in the provinces was an afterthought to make up for extra football matches in the quarter-finals.

Of 27 games played to date, excluding the two preliminary quarter-finals All-Ireland where the dominant MacCarthy Cup teams are expected to win anyway, six have finished the level after 70 minutes, reflecting parity between the seven or eight best teams in the game.

All throws should not be a score to be a clbadic as the 0-18 each Leinster final between Galway and Kilkenny illustrated. But it is useful for the referees and Hawk officials to be so busy.

The referees also play their part, but it is somewhat contradictory when the product is so improved by the rules that are thus ignored.

] Better strikes, better stamina and speed, and greater strength are factors that contribute to the higher scores, but what is the impact of the leap pbad, so prevalent the weekend as has been the case lately? 19659005] The rule calls a "defined" strike action with the hand, but in short range it becomes less and less obvious. Watch a raise from one or the other game over the weekend with a particular focus on the legality of the hand pbad to understand how it helps the flow of the game.

But who wants spoil the summer with such irrelevant details? Cork manager John Meyler certainly did not do so based on the idea that Daniel Kearney was fouled by Cian Lynch late in the first half of the year. time, one of the many who went unpunished. Hurling has long learned to shrug off such incidents. With the party in full swing, no one will drop the music.

Irish Independent