Last Saturday I would have enjoyed sitting down in front of the box, coffee in one hand, biscuits in the other, and the Cork-Limerick match live from Páirc Uí Chaoimh. That wasn’t to be because it was not on terrestrial TV. I could have shelled out the €12 for GAAGO as I did for a match a few weeks ago and will do again today.
But I didn’t bother. A friend who referees club matches needed an umpire so I forewent the biscuits. At one stage during that match, I received an almighty smack in the face from a ricocheting shot at goal that knocked me halfway into next week.
In my momentarily dazed condition, I saw Kerry winning this year’s All-Ireland football title, but reality arrived back within seconds. By the time I got home, the radio said Limerick had come back from eight points down. The fare had all the signs of a funeral procession for Cork.
Then Marty nearly choked when Shane Kingston was flattened and Pa Horgan stepped up to do his thing. Holy Moly, as Marty would say, the Rebels had taken up their bed and walked. A game for the ages.
“We are all rebels tonight,” I texted a friend who was in the Páirc to witness history. Two issues arose immediately. The first was that hurling bores came out to play across the airways.
They told us how lucky we were to bear witness to such human endeavour in this country. They reached for adjectives not yet known to the English language. Some of them sounded like they might self-combust from self-congratulations.
They .