It was a strangely anticlimatic final to a Gaelic football championship full of bizarre moments. Cork's win yesterday seemed predestined from the moment Kerry lifted Sam Maguire last September. They seemed shackled by fear and expectation all summer. Down should have been more ruthless in the first half, when Cork's own insecurity threatened to swallow them whole. It was an unfulfilling occasion. The Hill looked like the floor of an abattoir. Roy Keane was in the house.
Other than a few helter-skelter minutes in the second half, Croker never wheezed and howled with anticipation. Ger Canning's commentary was typically anodyne and RTE dropped the ball by not simulcasting even one moment of M'OMs last All-Ireland final.
The last five minutes, capped by Danny Hughes's remarkable fisted point:
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Graham Canty lifts Sam:
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And finally, a woman named Pauline:
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