February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Malachy Clerkin
Athenry 3-24, Graigue-Ballycallan 2-19
DUBLIN — So Athenry are kings of all they survey once more. Two years in a row for them, two years of supremacy that was never in more doubt than during the dying moments of normal time in this extraordinary final.
The clock was showing two minutes too many and Graigue were on the safe side of the knife edge, a goal ahead and comfortable. Then, Athenry scythed one last attack, a long, high, hopeful ball into the heart of the Graigue defense. Cue chaos. Cue Eugene Cloonan.
Paddy O’Dwyer had done a good job keeping tabs on the impish Cloonan throughout the game, but now, amid the whirlwind and brouhaha, he could do nothing to prevent the Athenry full-forward from flicking his stick to force parity.
Johnny Ronan in the Graigue goal got a final, desperate touch but was swallowed up as Cloonan cantered the ball over the line. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t poetic. But my, oh my, was it ever priceless.
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Extra time was always going to be an Athenry cakewalk. Their bench was sprightlier, their morale was higher, their sense of destiny was clearer. A second title in a row would secure their place in the pantheon, and they weren’t going to let a trivial detail like fatigue get in the way.
So once it became clear in the first few minutes of extra time that Graigue had precious little left to offer, Athenry went into overdrive. Joe Rabitte trundled up to full-forward and pushed Eugene Cloonan out into the middle of the park. Thus was the title secured.
Cloonan had been a bit quiet for most of the day. True, he amassed a not unimpressive tally of 1-11, but only 1-1 of that came from play. Still, he appeared to shake himself in extra time, removing his helmet as if to say he meant business this time. He was everywhere in midfield, collecting puck-outs, spearing high balls into Rabitte, generally quelling any hopes Graigue harbored of a comeback.
Rabitte too was invigorated by the switch. Unburdened of the responsibility of chasing and hounding around midfield, he struck a majestic pose at full-forward. Every high ball invariably ended up clutched in his paw, every clutched ball. He set substitute Diarmuid Burns up for two delicious points and then sniped a goal for himself, just for good measure. That made it 2-20 to 1-17. Graigue were sunk.
It was cruel on the Kilkenny side, and yet it would have been a travesty had Athenry left Croke Park without the spoils. Indeed, the victory was made all the sweeter for the fact that they so nearly did.
That Graigue entered the dénouement in the lead was more a testament to Athenry’s carelessness than to Graigue’s excellence. Granted, they enjoyed a 15-minute spell of dominance in the second half of normal time, but All-Ireland titles are generally not won in the space of 15 minutes.
Nonetheless, it is worth noting the calm efficiency of Adrian Ronan, upon whose burly shoulders it fell to drag Graigue back into the game. Ronan carries a little too much paunch to look like any sort of action hero, but his wrists are sprinkled with gold. Time and again in that period he collected, turned and shot with a frightening economy of movement. No fuss. No furor. Just calm, collected brilliance. Almost enough to carry a team home.
Almost. In the end, Athenry deserved to win and Graigue did not. Simple as that. It would be cruel to suggest, however, that they deserved to lose the way they did. Nobody deserves that.