How can you not be romantic about football?
Any given Sunday. When 15 men battle 15 men, anything can happen on one Sunday.
If Carlow played Wexford nine more times, Banty’s men would come out on top in the majority of them but not this time. Not this Sunday.
The scenes in Carlow at full time were just something special https://t.co/9v1ZHKYLM1 @Carlow_GAA
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) May 21, 2017
The championship has far too many flaws that you almost wouldn’t be bothered to get into anymore.
There’s an imbalance in the number of games teams are playing, geography is still dictating who plays who, and the standard is so varied that it takes random weekends to throw up surprises to catch anyone’s imagination.
That happened on week two. It happened in Carlow.
They’d tell you though – and they’d tell you adamantly – that this was no fluke, what happened in Cullen Park. They’d tell you that this was coming, the product of serious work being put into the county in the last few years.
Their reward though – or their punishment – is a match with the All-Ireland champions, Dublin. But Carlow’s heroic midfielder Brendan Murphy wasn’t firing out cliches. He speaking bluntly and honestly about the challenge ahead.
“We could sit back and look at it that way [like a punishment], you could get a bit downbeat by it, but it is what it is and, for Carlow football, it’s just great that we have an extra two weeks in the Leinster championship,” Brendan Murphy opened up in a brilliant interview on The GAA Hour.
“We’ll do the best that we can with the two weeks training and put in the biggest amount of effort we can on the day but whatever happens happens.
“We’re just going to enjoy it – enjoy the build-up, the big crowd and playing against one of the best teams that, for me, have ever played the game. These days don’t come around too often and whatever happens at the final whistle, so be it.
“We need to be positive about this and really drive into training now for the next two weeks.”
He also wasn’t playing down the scale of what they did. Most GAA players are conditioned to look straight to the next game. Whatever happened is now gone but they were cherishing every last second of it.
Carlow manager Turlough O’Brien was invited onto The Sunday Game highlights show that evening too. It was a lovely touch to mark a lovely occasion.
“For some people in bigger counties, they might take for granted, that sort of thing,” Murphy said.
“But, for Carlow, that’s huge, Turlough going up there. Every pub in Carlow quietened down to watch The Sunday Game and to see the bit of exposure that Carlow and Turlough got.
“I haven’t won much but I’d almost compare it to winning the county final with my club. That was the sort of adrenaline rush, the feeling after it, it was just incredible.
“Carlow need these little days to really bring the thing on. There was a minor team playing before us who were very unlucky not to win but for them to be able to sit in the stand afterwards and see a Carlow team win, it’s huge. It doesn’t happen too often.
“Younger players don’t aspire to be a Carlow senior footballer because we don’t achieve success so if we can get these little steps along the way, it will create a bit of interest in the set-up and really drive Carlow on.”
Listen to the full interview from 56:35 below or subscribe here on iTunes.
