AIB All-Ireland SHC semi-final: Sarsfields v Slaughtneil (Sunday, 1.30pm, St Conleth’s Park, Newbridge, live on TG4)
WELCOME, all four of you, to the semi-finals of the AIB All-Ireland Sitting Duck Championship.
It has been an autumn like few others.
A brief rundown, then.
“It was tough on my mum and dad. I knew I was self-destructing. And I also knew the next phase of that, if I had carried on, it was not being here. I was in a very dark place...” - the life and times of Caolan Mooney
‘If you’re still in it when the Christmas tree is up then you’re not going too badly’ - Tommy Coleman’s minors striving for more Clann Eireann success
Sleacht Néill turned in one of their best performances of the last ten years to overcome Cushendall after extra-time. They hit 1-36. Hardly missed all night.
Two weeks later, they’re eight down at half-time to Portaferry. Flat. Off it. The touch is poor, the decision-making has deserted them. Midway through the second half, they’re still eight down.
But just as the Down champions have the Four Seasons Cup in their sights, Sleacht Néill find their wings. They flap furiously for two minutes. Bang, two goals. The game turns. They survive.
Survival has been a rarity in this championship.
When Thomastown took out both Ballyhale and O’Loughlin Gaels en-route to the Kilkenny title, they looked to be scything a path for themselves.
First round of Leinster, Westmeath’s Castletown-Geoghegan bring the shock. Thomastown are flat. Off it. Touch is poor. You know the drill already.
They’re not just beaten but hammered back out the gate in Mullingar. The 11-point margin only flattered the losers.
Ballyhale, O’Loughlin Gaels and now Thomastown are gone. The bookies can’t sharpen their knives quickly enough for Ballygunner’s odds. An 18-point win in the Waterford final, victories over Doon by five and Loughmore-Castleiney by ten, visitors to the door pretty much every winter.
And then Sarsfields come along. The team that they’d beaten by 17 points last year, who had lost the Cork final, stewed on it a month before finishing strong against Feakle to become the first team from the county to win a game in Munster in eight years.
Theirs was slightly different though. Ballygunner weren’t bad. Not brilliant either, but not bad.
At 1-7 apiece after just 18 minutes, it was like a scene from Full Metal Jacket, shots flying everywhere, everything getting hit.
But the energy was all Sars’. They’d laid out their arms in the first 15 minutes in Thurles, hammering into the black ‘n’ red. Hook, block, tackle. Every ruck all day was theirs barring for a short spell in the third quarter when you felt the wheel was turning.
Enter Shane O’Regan. 2-3 off the bench, man of the match. Anyone dreaming dreams like that would be wanting looked about.
To continue the theme before we return to this game, Loughrea are on the other side. They were a point down with a minute to go against Castlegar in the Galway quarter-final before pulling it from the fire.
Their final opponents were the sitting duck. Cappataggle had caught the country’s eye with victory over All-Ireland champions St Thomas’ in the semi-final. Flat. Off it. Touch. Gone. Loughrea win by three.
Na Fianna have taken a slightly different road but at no point of their Dublin final win over Kilmacud would you have thought they were going to win it until the precise moment that they did.
So yeah, this is the Sitting Duck All-Ireland.
And on Sunday, Sarsfields are the sitting ducks.
It’s one of the most difficult positions to react to in sport. You’ve just had a big win. Everyone’s buzzing. You want to extract the good from the feeling and discard the bad, the bits that leave you flat and off it, not ready for the next big one.
It wasn’t just that they beat Ballygunner, but the manner in which they did it.
They started on a war footing but matched it with the smarts and the hurling.
You could have chosen half a dozen man of the match winners.
O’Regan had the match-winning impact that could well push him back into the full-forward line from the start this weekend, but Daniel Kearney, Jack O’Connor, Conor O’Sullivan, Luke Elliott and Eoghan Murphy all stood out.
Their captain O’Sullivan, lucky not to be sent off at a crucial stage against Feakle for a wild pull that gave Shane McGrath a penalty, was like glue to Dessie Hutchinson, really beaten just once all afternoon for a brilliant goal off Ballygunner’s trademark diagonal ball.
Sleacht Néill will have seen things in that game that will give them heart. Brendan Rogers has been operating deep for most of their two Ulster outings, but this might be an afternoon when he’s best employed inside.
Sarsfields gave Ballygunner so much space in there. They backed themselves that they wouldn’t allow the ball to stick.
It relied so heavily on their insane energy levels in the middle third that disrupted the service. But even then, Patrick Fitzgerald had a great day against Paul Leopold. He kept Ballygunner alive.
This brings us back to the sitting ducks theory.
Like Slaughtneil against Portaferry, they’d put so much into beating Cushendall that when they dipped and met an opponent that were good enough to capitalise, the whole project almost capitulated.
Sleacht Néill are good enough to capitalise if Sarsfields aren’t on. If both teams are on it, Sleacht Néill are good enough to win it.
Paul McCormack has big calls to make though.
Shane McGuigan was the attacking platform upon which they rescued the Ulster final. He has done big man-marking jobs in the past, TJ Reid the headline act, Eoghan Sands the last day.
Do they send him to mind Daniel Kearney in the knowledge that the defensive side of that task might eat up so much of his bandwidth that he doesn’t impact their attacking game as they need him to?
They’ll also be acutely aware of James Sweeney at full-forward. They struggled with Neil McManus in the air and Sweeney is a big unit with a near-Jonathan Glynn feel to him.
Sarsfields are big in a lot of areas. It is a physicality that might worry Sleacht Néill, but you presume not. They’ll view it that their pace can exploit it.
It’s Sweeney’s place most likely to be under threat if they do go for O’Regan from the start. If it makes sense on paper, it could still come to be counter-productive just based off how Sweeney’s height might trouble the Derry men and how they might rob themselves of the bench impact too.
The potential battle between Fionn McEldowney and Jack O’Connor could leave both teams down a GPS vest each.
Both midfields have scores in them. Both half-back lines will feel they have an edge against the respective half-forward divisions. It’s particularly pertinent for Sleacht Néill not to allowed the two Murphys, Brian and Eoghan, and Luke Elliott to start running the game.
But for every pothole you might see, there’s also stretches of clear road where they both might get joy.
It is to their full-forward divisions that both will look.
If Sarsfields give Sleacht Néill the same space they gave Ballygunner then Rogers has the potential to wreak havoc in there with the right ball.
Whether he gets the right ball depends on the Cork side’s energy levels, whether they have that same insatiable thirst as they had two weeks ago.
Sarsfields are sitting ducks now.
And sitting ducks have not fared well this year.
Sleacht Néill by a nose.