Not so much free-flowing football in the capital city on Friday evening.
On Sunday last, there was a horrified reaction to Slaughtneil’s Derry Senior Football Championship win over rivals Magherafelt.
Slaughtneil won out 0-10 to 0-5 but the scoreline was not what so offended GAA fans. Instead, it was footage and reaction from the game.
Videos circulated of the Slaughtneil players passing the ball around inside their own half, unopposed, for long stretches as their opponents refused to enter and engage with them. For four minutes before half-time, with Magherafelt trailing 0-4 to 0-3 and knowing they would soon be playing into the wind, Slaughtneil’s players were left to pass the ball among themselves.
Magherafelt sat back and waited while both sets of fans yelled forlornly for some kind of action to break out.
The fall-out of that game continued all the way to Thursday, with Slaughtneil’s Chrissy McKaigue expressing his dissatisfaction with how events unfolded… or refused to unfold.
Change was demanded in newspapers local, regional and national, across the airwaves and debated on TV, on several websites and all over social media. Gaelic football was folding in upon itself and something had/has to be done.
One wonders, then, if the final scoreline from the Dublin SFC will gain much traction over the weekend.
A Kilmacud Crokes side with, among others, Paul Mannion and Mark Vaughan up front took on a Raheny team containing Dublin midfielder Brian Fenton. Brian Howard, nominated for Young Footballer of the Year, had been named at 12 but did not start after a late change was made.
Looks like Brian Howard isn’t togging for @RahenyGAA tonight! They will miss him against Crokes!
Will @BernardBrogan get the start for @plunketts_ie & can they beat @BodenGaa by 5pts to progress to the Q.Finals (if Raheny lose).
All to play for in Group 1 tonight!#DSFC1 #Gaa pic.twitter.com/lRn32IHJrV
— 𝘿𝙪𝙗𝙈𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙧 (@DubMatchTracker) September 14, 2018
After five minutes, it looked as if we had a cracker on our hands. Fenton and Vaughan exchanged points and it was 0-1 apiece.
At half-time in Balgriffin, though, Crokes led 0-4 to 0-2.
Surely it would get better after the break? Some chance.
Midway through the half and Kilmacud had stretched their lead to three points. When Mannion popped up with a score, they were four ahead with 10 minutes to play. Fenton got one back for Raheny but that was the height of it.
At full-time, the score was Kilmacud Crokes 0-7 Raheny 0-4.
The rain held off for most of the night, in Dublin, but earlier bad weather led to slick conditions and a greasy ball. Other than that, no excuses.
How two of the county’s top club sides combined for only 11 points certainly needs looking at. It will be interesting to see if any videos surface with fans calling out, ‘This is not Gaelic!’ and ‘Play football’, like they did in Derry last weekend.
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