There was only one Irish man who could match the power-packed-punch of Floyd Mayweather, and it wasn’t Conor McGregor.
The tension was running high throughout Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final clash between Mayo and Kerry on Saturday, with 19 cards issued by referee David Gough, but the bad blood really boiled over after the clock struck 70, with Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s men a beaten docket.
A harsh black card given to substitute Darren O’Sullivan lit the touch paper, and with both sides taking no prisoners in a helter-skelter encounter, and an All-Ireland final place at stake, neither county were going to shirk the challenge.
A Peter Crowley red card was soon followed by some Kerry frustration.
Eventually, Mayo’s phenomenal fitness told, with a seemingly bottomless tank of energy shared by the likes of Keith Higgins, Paddy Durcan, Lee Keegan, man-of-the-match Colm Boyle and the ageless Andy Moran.
The fire and brimstone approach of these attackers was ably supported by the sound foundation laid by Aidan O’Shea in the full back line, who, with huge credit due to his stoic manager, Stephen Rochford, kept Kerry’s danger man Kieran Donaghy as quiet as a mouse.
Up until the dying moments of the game that was.
A skirmish broke out between the sides, and Donaghy took it all out on the Breaffy man.
Ping.
The Kingdom troops were down, they were defeated and they cut hugely frustrated figures as their Sam Maguire dreams were dead and buried.
The most telling punch of all was landed by Kieran Donaghy on his marker O’Shea, and he had the marks to show for it when he returned home to Mayo on Saturday night.
Sheesh, that looks nasty.
The only blow landed by Donaghy all day.
Quite a shiner.
We’d imagine it was even sorer looking Sunday morning, but as we all know, when you win, the pain isn’t felt near as much.
