What a bloody leap.
When Josh Keane sliced a high ball towards the Mayo box from 50 yards out, it looked like a bit of Hail Mary effort. It looked like a hopeless long ball that the Mayo men would gobble up. Michael Quinlivan didn’t see it that way.
In reality, it was probably something that Liam Kearns’ Premier men have worked on in training and we should be giving Josh Keane more credit.
But with David Clarke and Paddy Durcan were covering for Mayo, it didn’t look perilously dangerous for the Yew County.
The Clonmel Commercials ace doesn’t see things like the rest of us do, however. One of Gaelic football’s deadliest forwards, he’s scored more quality goals than any other player over the last few years.
Surely between Clarke and Durcan they’d manage to clear their lines, you thought. Then you remember this is Michael Quinlivan they’re dealing with.
He ghosted his way across the box and leapt into the air ominously in the direction of the O’Neill’s size five. The whole of Semple Stadium drew a sharp intake of breath while Quinlivan just hung in the air as time forze.
Like a ballet dancer he stretched his arm gracefully, he met the ball at his highest point and with a calm left hand and he steered it into the open net he had lured David Clarke from.
Clarke came flying out hopelessly. Paddy Durcan looked confused. Quinlivan wheeled away calmly. He means business, Tipperary mean business.
Michael Quinlivan fists it into the back of the net! pic.twitter.com/cCQf6YSRmA
— The GAA (@officialgaa) June 23, 2018
That’s unreal stuff, that’s Michael Quinlivan stuff.
You’d have to wonder why Mayo have the more attack minded Paddy Durcan shadowing Tipperary’s most physical threat. On numerous occasions in Thurles, he was brushed out of the way by MQ 14.
