WELL WHAT CAN WE SAY about the Kerry-Derry game now? Were you entertained? Forgive us, but this is the week when we revisit the topic; ‘The Death of Gaelic Football, instalment number 329 in a never-ending sequence.’ The term ‘Puke Football’ has been widely invoked since. Many are unable to resist it, and it comes with some continuity given that Mickey Harte was on the sideline for Sunday’s headliner, and the Tyrone-Kerry semi final of 2003 that spawned Pat Spillane’s quip.
People using it though, are talking about two entirely different things. Think of the most enduring sequence of that 2003 game. It was Kerry’s Dara Ó Cinneide sauntering out from his defence towards the Hogan Stand.
Then Conor Gormley, Philip Jordan, Kevin Hughes and Owen Mulligan surrounded him, bumping and clawing. To his credit, he stabbed the ball back towards Dara Ó Sé but Hughes and late arrival Sean Cavanagh forced him to spill his pick up. Ó Cinneide gathered up the loose ball and was set upon by four players again before Stephen O’Neill sent him backwards with a shoulder.
The play by now was inching closer to the Kerry defensive ‘D’, by the way. Eventually Eoin Brosnan grabbed it, made a few more yards but the weight of numbers overpowered him and O’Neill scooped up possession. It was the ultimate in Gegenpressing.
Heavy Metal Gaelic football long before the phrases were coined. It should have been praised and hailed as a coaching innovation. But Pat Spillane was not .
