Chalk and cheese.
Those who travelled to Ardee for the clash of Louth and Wicklow’s under-17s on Wednesday evening were treated to a Leinster championship thriller.
In recent times, the narrative surrounding gaelic football has been that the beautiful game is dying by the day. Pundits are far too eager to complain about different styles instead of actually analysing them and attempting to understand why teams play them.
It has resulted in a far too pessimistic outlook on the whole thing, and doesn’t take into account that there were actually low scoring games in the past too. With players so fit and so conditioned now, that’s just how the game is gone. It’s not going to change so we might as well just accept it and explore its beauty.
Admittedly, some games, such as Galway and Mayo’s meeting in the Connacht championship recently are boring and unexciting, but instead of focusing in on them to the most minute detail, we’d save ourselves plenty of distress by taking a balanced look at it and basking in the glory of the beautiful scores kicked by our footballers in Omagh last weekend, for example.
We’d be better off basking in the glory of the spectacle created by the next generation of stars from both the Louth and Wicklow minor teams last night.
11 goals were scored in the Wee County grounds in a game that nearly had as many goals scored as it did wide balls.
Leinster Minor Football Championship Rd 2
LOUTH 6-9 WICKLOW 5-12
Louth Scorers: Ryan Walsh 2-1, Daire Nally 1-2, Ruairi Hanlon 1-1, Sean Healy 1-1, Cathal Fleming 1-0, Jonathon Commins 0-2, Conal McCaul 0-1, Craig Lennon 0-1.
— Louth GAA (@louthgaa) May 23, 2018
Wicklow’s Eoin Darcy looked to have won the game when he rammed a 60th minute free to the net, but the home side’s Ryan Walsh, scorer of 2-1 stepped up to level it right at the death.
If joe brolly and pat Spillane are sick at looking at puke football well they should of been in Ardee tonight Louth 6-9 wicklow 5-12
— Kevin darcy (@Kevindarcy15) May 23, 2018
In the end, after a titanic hour of football, the sides couldn’t be separated as they ended up tied at 6-9 to 5-12 after going blow for blow the whole way through.
Where Louth and Wicklow was a high-scoring, entertaining thriller, the clash of Carlow and Kildare in the same competition a few miles down the road in Dr. Cullen Park was quite the opposite.
Carlow, a young team with a number of their players under the age again next year, adopted a defensive style of play to try and curtail the rampant Lilywhites.
At the minor game between Carlow and Kildare this evening. Carlow played with three sweepers, managed two points in the entire game and never changed their system despite trailing by 7 at HT. They lost 1-13 to 0-2 in the end. Carlow management should hang their heads in shame
— Patrick Ward (@patrickward93) May 23, 2018
That didn’t work out too well for them as they ended the game with a scant total of two points to their name. Kildare, meanwhile cut through the blanket to score 1-13.
It just goes to show you’ve to take the good with the bad.
