Enda McEvoy: A sporting event that left us all, Brits included, entranced

One of the five officials — not even a quorum, just the one — within hailing distance spots that the careen of the sliotar from Seamus Harnedy’s shot can only have been the result of a touch by a defender’s stick. A 65’, not a puckout, and another Horgan point.

Or try this for a real dinger. On any other afternoon Fitzgerald doesn’t fumble the ball in the 51st minute and thus has the time and space to tap over a handy point instead. There is no grateful layoff to Tony Kelly, who therefore does not Nureyev his way through the Cork rearguard. The Greatest All-Ireland Final Goal Ever remains to be scored.

All those roads not taken. After a contest of such Homeric proportions, what might have ensued deserves acknowledgement too because it is in the nature of things that the stories of the losers go untold, the generosity of their contribution now wormwood and gall in their mouths. There may be solace in losing an epic semi-final when you’ve won the last four All-Irelands; there is no solace in losing an epic final when you haven’t won one for 19 years and can’t be sure of the time of the next bus.

Yet, and for the umpteenth time here, it cannot always be about the destination because otherwise sport would have neither participants nor spectators. Cork — four of their front eight failed to produce the required performance and that was at least two too many — came up half a whisker short under second-season management. They were classy and dignified in defeat, personified by a man who possesses more perspective about these things than most. That matters too. And they’ll always have Páirc Uí Chaoimh against Limerick and Croke Park against Limerick and nobody will ever take that away from them.

Nor will this give them consolation but, by slaying the green giant three weeks ago, they ensured that next year the front row of the grid will host three or four cars instead of just the one. The countdown to Championship 2025 began at teatime on Sunday.

Occasionally a sporting event unfolds that not only exalts the code but exalts sport itself also. Watson and Nicklaus at Turnberry in 1977. Nadal and Federer at Wimbledon in 2008. Frankel’s annihilation of his 2000 Guineas field. Most of Arkle’s career. Every day Lionel Messi took the field. (Nothing involving Ali, the most charismatic sportsman of the 20th century, you’ll note. Professional boxing can compel but, even at its most captivating, it does not make us feel better about ourselves. That’s okay too.)

Add Croke Park on July 21, 2024, to the list. It wasn’t quite the greatest All-Ireland final ever — too much slack shooting, while only in the current era would a centre-back have been allowed to chug his way up the field and score a goal untouched — but it was the most hard won and unquestionably the most entrancing for the neutral, the native viewer as well as the BBC’s apparent legion of new converts.

It’s nice that the latter enjoyed the proceedings. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if they hadn’t. Let’s not overdo the reverse cultural cringe here, people. Incidentally, at least some BBC viewers are likely to tune in again tomorrow expecting more of the same. Who fancies giving them the bad news?

If there was any doubt as to the composition of Clare hurling’s Mount Rushmore, there’s none now. Tull Considine, Jimmy Smyth, Ger Loughnane, Brian Lohan (*).

It took the latter, as Cork may reflect if they choose to, five years to win anything and five years to reach an All-Ireland final. He kept failing, or at any rate not succeeding: Two semi-final defeats and three Munster final disappointments. 

Eventually, he got around to failing better. Then he got around to merely doing the league-championship double.

Twenty percent of Clare’s five All-Irelands and five league titles have come on Lohan’s watch, and this after he spent the first two years of his tenure trying to clean out the stables. Stick around long enough and occasionally the pieces will fall into place. Witness Kelly and Ryan Taylor hitting their straps in the past month and Aidan McCarthy reinventing himself as a 100% placed-ball merchant when it couldn’t have mattered more.

The significance of who the manager is and what he represents cannot be overstated. That the Banner should eventually win an All-Ireland under one member or another of Ger Loughnane’s praetorian guard, as so nearly happened in 2005 under Dalo, mattered. This means more.

The torch has been handed over where it might have been dropped. Why the heroes of 1995 bequeathed a legacy where the Wexford of 12 months later did not is a mystery and a sad one. Was it for this that Liam Griffin gave his life’s work?

In the past 30 years Clare have won as many All-Irelands as Tipperary and more than Cork, Dublin, Galway, Offaly, Wexford, and Waterford. One MacCarthy Cup per decade keeps the flowers watered and emboldens a new wave of youth. 

It is nothing less than what the county must continue to aspire to and work for, with a generational team maybe materialising once every 25 years or so to win more than once.

An enduring hurling power at last.

*Yes, yes. If they ever decide to put a fifth face on the Dalcassian Mount Rushmore, it’ll be Tony Kelly’s. Obviously.

What’s the best carvery in the country?

Now for an item that may be remembered long after everything else on this page has been forgotten.

What’s the best carvery in the country?

The question occurred recently on a visit to Lawlor’s Hotel in Naas. How your correspondent had never previously made it to that splendid establishment remains a minor mystery, but the wait was worth it.

There was everything a hungry diner could wish for. Bacon stacked in a Himalayan pile. Honey-roasted carrots. Vivid green, buttery cabbage. Mashed and roast spuds. One shudders to think what sophisticated metropolitan types would have made of it — not nearly enough smashed truffled tamarind on a bed of wilted radicchio and toasted quinoa quenelles presumably — but for people who like their dinner in the middle of the day, such as Irish Examiner readers, it was pure heaven. So for folk travelling to matches or races, what establishments offer a good feed, whether carvery or otherwise?

A warning note is sounded by Joe Seward, an afficionado of the genre. Carveries fell by the wayside after covid, he laments. One still standing is The Elm Tree in Glounthaune, which Mr Seward surmises may be the best in the country.

Other popular spots include Matt the Thresher’s in Birdhill; the Old Walls in Liscarroll, near Mallow; and the Hunters Rest in Mitchelstown, accurately described by a Limerick reader as offering “proper food for country people”.

Further suggestions on the back of a grubby menu to the usual address.

Heroes and villians

Stairway to Heaven

Team Ireland’s Olympic uniform: Designed by Laura Weber, complete with each athlete’s county crest on the jacket. Who needs Armani, who’s doing the Italian one?

Jill Biden: Led the US’s great and good at the opening ceremony in Paris. Fair enough. She won’t be having too many more days out.

Hell in a Handcart

Everton: The latest proposed takeover is off and the coffers are being Dracula’d on a weekly basis by hefty loan repayments. Three weeks to Groundhog Season. Again.

Charlotte Dujardin: British multiple Olympic dressage medallist suspended and her potential damehood now off the table after being caught whipping a horse. She won’t be having any more days out.