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Here's how the Super 8 starts, not with a bang but with a groan. While highly hyped new vehicle launches are going, double last night at Croke Park was up there with the inaugural flight of the Hindenburg.
The new competitive start in Gaelic football offered us a match that was finished before half-time and another that was put out of doubt at the beginning of the second period.
He did not really put the appetite for more than Super 8 fun and antics. A critic once said of American writer Carl Hiaasen that his novels did more to keep tourists away from the state of Florida than to make a Florida visit. Last night at Croke Park called this remark in mind. The most fervent critic of the Super 8 could have made no more powerful case than that provided by this pair of snipers.
Perhaps the memory of the evening will be an extraordinary 15-minute spell of the Dublin-Donegal match The Irish champions have failed to score because they have decided to engage in an immensely tedious keep-ball routine. It was rancorous, mocking, corrupt, useless stuff, reminiscent of the valueless boastfulness that sometimes hindered the performance of the Dublin teams in more unimaginable times.
Jim Gavin's Dubs are often hailed for embodying the best qualities of the game. For most of the fourth quarter, they engaged in a form of anti-football that took life out of Croke Park . They might as well have let the air out of the ball. A team of Donegal ready to take away deserved a little more respect even though she was flattered to be only five points from the finish.
There were things to admire in Dublin's performance, Brian Howard's outstanding individual performance, Brian Fenton, Niall Scully's two unbaduming good goals, an electrifying cameo from Cormac Costello, Dean Rock and James McCarthy who did their usual thing, but the way they finished the match did little credit to the team. That it indicates a certain level of uncertainty or yesteryear or simply an unsuspected malice of the mind is something that we will discover in due time.
Tyrone, so often derided as the great villains of contemporary football, at least continued to thunder until the end of their match against Roscommon. Yet the vast gap between the two parties has cruelly exposed the illusion at the heart of the Super 8. There are simply not eight football teams equipped to play in this kind of competition.
Someone surprised the margin by 18 points of defeat because the Rossies did not have to pay much attention. Kevin McStay's team made a good match by defeating Armagh, but at this stage of the competition last year, Armagh also lost to Tyrone, while Mayo had 22 points more than Roscommon in quarterfinal. Roscommon are literally only in the Super 8 to dial the numbers. You're shivering about what might happen to them in Dublin unless of course the Dubs decide to start holding the ball at the end of the first quarter
Tyrone gets a bad reputation as a defender but a team that scored 7 -44 in two games hardly qualifies for this description. They can defend in depth but they also counter-attack in numbers, four of their backs were on the score sheet yesterday and there is a fluidity about Mickey Harte's team that makes them very easy to watch in full flow. The unexpected indolence that Dublin has displayed in the closing laps may give them some hope of causing a surprise at Omagh next week.
Galway, Kerry, Monaghan and Kildare must now dispel the impression of rot left by the opening. two games in the new format. It would be ridiculous to already make a judgment on the Super 8, but the first results confirm to some extent the fears of the skeptic.
When there are only four matches left in a throw championship that offers a weekly entertainment party, the football competition will have to elicit slightly better reactions than "Ah, of course, it was not so That's terrible. "
The two games of the previous day were strangely similar to the ridiculous and uncompetitive quarter-finals last year. Changing a name does not change the reality. It simply proves the truth of this venerable Irish proverb: "Leather síoda ar ghabhar agus is gabhar i gcónaí é". Put silk on a goat and it's still a goat.
Sunday Indo Sport
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