For a second, Niall O’Leary must have thought to himself ‘lovely! straight into my trap, I have ya now!’
Because in fairness to the Castlelyons corner back, Peter Casey threw his customary shimmy but like a man who’d done nothing in the last two weeks only video analysis, this number two wasn’t buying it. He’d seen it all before and if it was a dummy or yard of space Casey was looking for, he’d have to stay going if he wanted to lose this tail.
Unfortunately for O’Leary, who wasn’t given a split second to congratulate himself, this was as good as it got. Maybe it was part of the plan, maybe it was an instinctive reaction but as soon as O’Leary read the play, Casey was wise to it and he was ready to rock again. So he stalled, then jinked back in a flash and by then, the Cork man was already heading for home with his back to the crowd and with his tail between his legs. No amount of video-analysis could have prepared him for this one.
Shakira Shakira 🎶🎶pic.twitter.com/Et5M5upsds
— GAA JOE (@GAA__JOE) August 24, 2021
Paul Murphy was once that soldier, having been sent out on the same mission in the 2019 All-Ireland semi-final. Murphy had watched the videos, he’d seen the dummies and going into the game, he’d said to himself that there was only one way to keep those hips honest.
“When we played them in 2019, I was told ‘you’re man-marking him.’ So I watched loads of videos of him and he had a great year, popping up all over the place, throwing dummies and so on.
“It was one of the things I said to myself when I was watching him, I was ‘like look at the jinks on this fella he keeps jumping around the place.; So I said to myself ‘If he throws a jink left, I’m just going to go off right and let him come back to me and meet me when he comes back.'”
It’s a gamble but but you have to gamble when you’re playing with fire. Having been dropped for the 2020 final, having had to appeal a red card to play in this final, Murphy, Parkinson and Damien Hayes on The GAA Hour were all delighted that Casey brought his best to this All-Ireland final day. It was disappointing for him and it was disappointing for Limerick that, with a knee injury, it ended prematurely but with five points to his name, with Croke Park hanging on his every move, he had the damage done.
“He was at the top of his game,” said Parkinson.
“I was thinking, after all his bad luck, whether it was suspensions or getting dropped, I was thinking, he’s really taking his opportunity here. Then he went and got injured which was unfortunate because he was overshadowed then by Lynch.”
“I was delighted for him,” added Damien Hayes.
“I was disappointed for him in the semi-final that he got sent off and I was just hoping that the build-up and the sort of negativity that comes with that wouldn’t effect his performance. Thankfully, it didn’t. He drove into it, scored five points from play. He was on course for man-of-the-match because he was just on the button.
“The little shimmy that he gave, it was like a winger playing rugby, it was just beautiful. He gave a five-star performance and while it was unfortunate he had to go off, he went off having scored five points from play. He might have got injured, but he’ll be a delighted man now.
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Why wouldn’t he be?
