James Skehill is on his knees.
The Cappataggle goalkeeper has succumb to gravity, his hands planted on the soft and dew-covered November turf in Athenry, the top of his helmet supporting his bowed head pressed against the post.
One by one, the Mellows players trudge up and offer a sympathetic pat on the back to this man mountain reduced to a bowled-over ball at the final whistle.
The number 12 who had, just seconds earlier, been standing in Skehill’s way, delaying the puckout, provoking a shoulder and then a push is now down having a kind and respectful word in the Cappy native’s ear, trying to lift him back to his feet. He gets a hand of acknowledgment but the Galway hurler’s legs are weightless and trying to move him is fruitless.
(Joe Keane photography)All over Kenny Park, black and red jerseys are strewn horizontally, faces on the grass, hands covering their heads. Hurls are abandoned, punches thrown at the ground as subs and selectors get to work on their wounded club mates who seem to all be piled up at the town end where they searched in desperation for an equaliser.
The crowds are as merciless as always, streaming out the gates before the ref has even issued a third shrill blast of his whistle and, slowly, the Cappataggle men have to accept that it’s over and limp off towards the changing rooms.
James Skehill hasn’t moved though.
Thousands have vacated the vicinity, the celebrations of the green and white jerseys are spilling out to the muddy hill by the changing rooms behind the goals but Skehill is still on his knees and closer to the ground than ever with his elbows now bearing his weight.
Just a few minutes beforehand, Cappataggle were leading and well on their way to their first ever senior final. There were only 60 seconds left of injury time when they were 0-19 to 0-18 to the good and spurned a chance to double the lead. Out of nowhere, Liam Mellows drilled over two in a row with as many attacks and, in the space of four pucks, the dream was taken away from them and quashed. Again.
A year on from losing the semi-final by a point to the eventual champions Mellows, Cappataggle lost the semi-final by a point to Mellows.
And you’re looking on wondering how did this happen?
How, when they took the lead deep into injury time?
How, when they restricted the champs to just six second half points?
How, when they seemed to dominate all sections of the pitch in that final 30 minutes?
How, when they had Jarlath Mannion?
The magic of club hurling is that, any Sunday, any place, you might see these performances. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll see these guys rising above even their own standards to drag their community along and show the rest of the county under the white heat what they’re actually made of.
The guts of nine thousand people crammed their way inside the Athenry walls on Sunday – although it’s hard to be sure of the exact figure given that there were still people walking in for free through the wide open main gate throughout the first half of the second game.
The stand was packed, all the seats occupied and the terrace at the other sideline was overflowing the entire length and depth of it.
Behind both goals, kids played. They ran after each other, they tripped one another up, they pucked ball, and hurls were being swung manically in the chaos between the parents and prams because if you have a dream of competing at this level, you can’t exactly afford to give up two hours of daylight on a winter’s weekend not practicing.
And Jarlath Mannion might’ve been playing in a senior championship semi-final but he was playing like a kid running wild behind the goals.
He was playing with all the joy and freedom and even the laughter of someone taking the piss outside the wire, trying to lob a ball over a mate’s head whilst holding a bottle of Coke and a packet of Meanies in the other hand.
It was the most carefree, most exhilarating second half display 2018 has witnessed.
Mannion, bursting with tireless, youthful energy, was zipping around Kenny Park as if it was the first time he had been let out all week. Every single sliotar that was even half there to be won, he was charging for it with pure zeal, flinging himself into bodies just for the craic if he knew he wasn’t going to get his hand on the small ball.
Five from play he hit against the champions who had no answer for the Cappy whippet carving out breathtaking individual scores for himself.
At one stage, he caught above two heads but he did it with an arc in his back, reaching behind to pluck from the Galway sky and, when he returned to earth, he still had the wherewithal and the audacity to jink between the two of them and slice over off the left.
He won frees after sliding low for dirty ball and he took three different markers on a tour of the pitch, relentlessly catching, spinning and sprinting.
By the time the Mellows half back was sent back to mind him in the corner and the bite in the game was sharper, the challenges later, the ante upped in the final quarter and the subs all along the line to give the sense that this could lose control at any stage, Mannion was sidestepping and darting around off the ball, evading clutches even with the play at the other side of the pitch.
But he seemed to be enjoying the attention. No, he was relishing it.
When he chased after a break up the line, up past the selectors and subs and with four green jerseys around him, one of them about to meet him square with a dangerously-timed thump from the side, you thought that this was it. This was to be his comeuppance, his just deserts for terrorising a side so viciously for so long. He was going to be taken out and he was going to have deserved it for being so annoyingly good.
But, somewhere, he found another gear, he accelerated even more and he initiated the ooof-effect challenge as he pulled at the ball rolling away from him and, in the same motion, took a massive, purposeful hit like a champion.
By any metric now, Mannion was the real deal.
Liam Mellows manager Louis Mulqueen couldn’t ignore that either and, in the aftermath, called for the county panel to take a proper look at this man.
Great to hear Louis Mulqueen on @gbfmsports giving credit to @cappataggle’s Jarlath Mannion adding that Galway need to look at players like that! Turloughmore game his stand out performance this year, lethal in attack, another Conor Whelan!
— Lisa Lawlor (@Lisa_Lawlor) November 4, 2018
Happy to add Jarlath Mannion, Kevin Cooney and Tadgh Haran to this list after today. Three top notch performances.👏👏👏
— David Connors (@peterswellman) November 4, 2018
Perhaps the cruelty and the beauty of sport is that a player like Jarlath Mannion can combine all the best qualities of a child’s fearlessness, a man’s full heart and an obsessive’s skill in one near-perfect performance but still, somehow lose.
Perhaps the real magic of it is just watching this attempt, this unrelenting effort to finally get over the line and realising that, even then, it might not happen.
Because, when all was said and done and when the Cappataggle number 15 left everything on the pitch, it still wasn’t enough. All that was left there in the end was the lonely figure of James Skehill, inconsolable.
It makes those 60 minutes even more special though. Their only real purpose was to reach a Galway final and they fell short of that, one point short.
In the absence of another day, another target, all that’s left is those 60 minutes. And, for an hour of purity, Jarlath Mannion had hurling people frothing. He had Cappataggle people believing. He had the kids behind the goals dreaming that they too can one day do what he’s doing right now.
And no matter what the scoreboard read, no matter what happens in the final, those 60 minutes will never change.
Photos by Joe Keane. Here.
