A difficult watch on day of hard lessons

VIEW FROM THE COUCH Shortcomings painfully highlighted by TV experts

The vanquished are soon forgotten. Sunday’s big game in Croke Park was over only a matter of minutes when the focus turned to the All-Ireland final between Kerry and Donegal.

The RTE panel down on the pitch – Peter Canavan, Lee Keegan and Paul Flynn – were asked by presenter Joanne Cantwell their thoughts about the upcoming clash between the big two. Who would go home with Sam? Already the bandwagon was moving on.

From time to time, as the pundits gave their views, shots of Meath players greeting and hugging fans were displayed on the TV screen - but there was an unmistakable sense that already the semi-final was history. The final was all that mattered now.

Before going for an ad break Cantwell did ask the three wise men their views on the Royals and what they can take from the year. “Just a quick word about Meath,” the presenter interjected.

Keegan, the former Mayo star, was first up. He talked about how they’ve had a “magical year” and how Robbie Brennan had brought “that tradition back to Meath” which he didn’t elaborate on but presumably he meant the tradition of winning.

“I just felt the styles of play were not going to suit Meath today,” he continued. “I just felt Donegal’s overall power, their pace, their accuracy and experience was going to be too much for Meath. Today is a big learner for Meath.

“They know the standard now, they know the level they have to get to. It’s a huge stepping stone for them but it did seem like a proper senior team playing against a lower senior team. They gave them some really harsh lessons today.”

Nobody could argue with that. Sunday’s game was similar to the women’s final at Wimbledon the day before when Iga Swiatek defeated Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-0. As one sided as a shipwreck.

That issue about the styles employed by both teams was a theme that ran through RTE’s coverage on Sunday – and no wonder.

There was the tendency of Meath to shoot from distance and seek to land a few two-pointers, something they’ve done very well this year. Against that was Donegal’s more polished strategy of moving the ball from player to player until someone was in close enough to go for a score.

It wasn’t long into the match before commentator Ger Canning and co-commentator Enda McGinley were homing in on the difference – and how Donegal’s slick tactics were working better. Much better.

“Meath’s challenge in this half is with their freedom they seem to play with, trying to make most out of their attacks, tempted by two-pointers where as Donegal have been much cleaner up front,” asserted McGinley as the game took flight.

During the half-time discussion down on the pitch with Meath 0-8 to 0-13 behind, Canavan, a perceptive, insightful and sharp an analyst as he was a super player with Tyrone, highlighted a revealing statistic. A stat that went a long way to explaining the mounting problems facing Robbie Brennan’s team.

“I think in total there have been 13 breaking balls around the middle and Donegal have won 10 of those – and they are getting so many scores from those breaking balls as well, and even when Meath tried to kick two short Donegal have intercepted them and are hurting them.”

He added something we already painfully knew. That the early injury to Bryan Menton was helping Donegal who “totally dominated the middle sector.”

Cantwell pointed out that during the league and championship Meath weren’t “afraid to have a pop” for two pointers before asking “Is that what’s is going to kill them today?”

Flynn took up the challenge. “They are going for the two pointers because they are invited to take them on,” he commented referring to Donegal’s cuteness, namely their tendency to block up the channels to goals, while leaving space free just outside the 40m arc. Meath, he inferred, had fallen, into the trap.

Flynn also conjured up statistics to back up his viewpoint. “They have been invited to take them on (two pointers) but they just weren’t able to convert them. They had eight wides, their scoring rate is 29 per cent, two out of the eight were (shots for) two pointers and they have dropped two short as well.”

“They were tempting Meath to have a go,” interjected Peter the Great. “You’re not coming down the centre of our defence. If you want to shoot you are going to have to shot from distance,” he added re-creating what Donegal defenders might be saying to their rivals, his northern accent giving further credibility to his imagined interpretation.

It was, the former Tyrone star who pointed out, “a risky enough policy but it’s paying off for Donegal.” A view nobody could find fault with.

Just how effective this clever approach was in yielding a rich harvest for Jimmy McGuinness’s troop was painfully revealed as the second-half unfolded.

As early as the 49th minute, when Donegal led 2-16 to 0-11, the game was over as a competitive contest. Everybody knew it.

There was a temptation to watch the unfolding action from behind the couch rather than on it! It looked, with every attack, like Donegal might add to their haul – their goal haul that is.

The one-sided nature of it all was reminiscent of the last time Royals won an All-Ireland SFC semi-final in 2001. Except that on that occasion it was Meath who dished out the hammering, defeating Kerry 2-14 to 0-5. The wheels of time move on.

As the final stages were played out on Sunday Meath fans, both in Croke Park and at home were willing for the mournful sound of the hooter to sound around the rapidly emptying stadium.

They just wanted the game, that turned into a horror movie, to be at last over, put out of their misery.

“It’s that classic scenario,” said McGinley as the final stages were played out. “The Meath preparation would obviously have been very thorough.

“They would have picked up that two key Donegal threats are the flick-on kick outs from Shaun Patton and the turnover and the hard break. You might know about them but trying to stop them is a completely different thing.”

Clearly feeling sorry for Meath and the mother and father of a thumping they were receiving, Ger Canning also pointed out as the second-half unfolded that the victories over Dublin, Kerry and Galway ensured this as a very positive campaign for the vanquished side.

“As Robbie Brennan was saying in the build up to this, nobody expected them to win any of those games,” he said.

“Their (Meath’s) finishing has just simply let them down. Nothing you could do about it, some days you get them, same days you don’t,” he added going all philosophical on us.

It was decent of the RTE commentator to highlight all of that – but it still did nothing to ease that old familiar feeling felt by Meath fans at the end of just having received a mighty kick in the solar plexus or a slap across the face with a wet towel.

The comprehensive crushing of hope is a nasty and unpleasant business.