The late great RTE commentator would have been hard pressed to paint a beautiful aural picture of a poor All-Ireland quarter-final, and four other takeaways from Kerry’s win over Derry
Kerry’s David Clifford is fouled by Conor Glass of Derry during the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Sportsfile
On the weekend that Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh was laid to rest in his native West Kerry – and on a day his voice and commentaries rang out around Croke Park in a fitting tribute to his memory by the GAA –, one wondered what the great broadcaster would have made of Kerry against Derry on Sunday.
Sometimes you would wonder if the man with the mic from Dún Síon isn’t to blame for the ills of modern Gaelic football. Is it a coincidence that almost as soon as he retired from commentating in 2010 that the game started to nosedive in terms of quality, or excitement at any rate? It sometimes seems that football was played in a way to suit Ó Muircheartaigh’s talents rather than the other way around. It is as if post-2010 when the great man wasn’t up in the gantry calling the action, that teams decided they could bore the life out of the rest of us without offending the Dingle man.
