February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Malachy Clerkin
Crossmolina 0-16, Nemo Rangers 1-12
DUBLIN — So who says that Mayo teams never win All-Ireland finals? Who says they freeze in the shadow of Croke Park, that they balk at the sight of the big stage? Not any more, they don’t. Not after this.
Crossmolina exited stage left on Monday enriched and emboldened by this famous victory. They won’t care a whit that it was achieved with little beauty, they’ll just revel in the glory for a while. The glory of taking on one of the country’s most fabled club sides and winning.
The glory of a tiny parish ruling the nation, for another year at least. The glory of triumphant homespun pride. For the petty neutral, there was much to find fault with. The game never really acquired a rhythm, the players (with one or two exceptions) never really found their feet. There were too many wides. Not just narrow wides, either. Ugly wides. Big, spiraling, screwy wides like you see at underage matches. Not easy on the eye.
One who did quicken the pulse on occasion was Crossmolina’s main attacking threat, Kieran McDonald. With his surfer-dude locks and his pretty-boy looks, it is easy to dismiss him as a good-time guy who treats football as a pastime and little more. Not so.
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McDonald was everywhere for Crossmolina on Monday. Gamboling down the wing, setting up attacks, breaking up Nemo attacks, chipping in with the odd point or seven. He was immense. With him in this sort of form, Mayo could well pose a threat to Galway’s Connacht crown come summer.
Despite his brilliance, however, it was hard to shake the feeling that this was a game Nemo lost rather than one that Crossmolina won. When it came down to it, their big names really didn’t shine as they should have.
Joe Kavanagh was almost eerily quiet throughout, never really showing for the ball or taking the responsibility that would be expected of someone with his experience and ability. Stephen O’Brien was charged with the task of keeping an eye on the marauding McDonald, a task that was strangely beyond him.
Colin Corkery contributed 1-6 to their tally, but again, never really lived up to his billing. His dead-eye accuracy from the placed ball was, as always, a wonder to behold, but surely he gets tired of being a one-trick pony. Never the slightest of waifs, even in his prime, his barrel frame is now getting beyond a joke. He’d be a hell of a footballer if he’d only lay off the fish suppers. As it was, he poached the goal that set up the grandstand finish.
O’Brien shook himself from his afternoon-long torpor just in time to set up one final attack, with Nemo trailing by four points. He streaked through the Crossmolina defense and fed Corkery, who goaled from close in.
A point in it and Nemo were resurgent. Everyone knew there’d be one last attack. Moreover, everyone knew who the final attacker would be.
And so it passed that Maurice McCarthy lobbed a fine ball onto Corkery’s ample chest. Thirty yards out, the big man twisted and turned in order to make space for the shot. Dredging up a twinkle-toed move from the darkest recesses of his youth, he dropped a shoulder and made Tom Nallen blink, wriggling free from the full-back’s attentions in a heartbeat.
And so this was it. One shot at it and the ball in the hands of one of the sharpest shooters in the business. What happened? Another one of those ugly, spiraling, screwy wides like you see at underage matches. Typical of the day. Typical of the man.