Brave Swanlinbar just come up short

The big house was eerily quiet before the honk of airhorns and the rasp of the travelling crowd broke the silence; it didn't quite fill the stadium but it reverberated nonetheless. Swad were here. Cavan were back in Croke Park. So too, though, were the Kerrymen. That lilt was everywhere. In the press box, in the stand, on the touchline; the sense from them was not that of occasion but business as usual. If the club finals are the pared-down, stripped-back, heart and soul of the GAA, then the corporate message is still never far away. “Don't encroach on the pitch,†intoned the Dublin 4 accent gravely across the PA, the big screen simultaneously flashing a message that, on producing your match ticket and a “special rate†of €6, you could leave your vehicle at certain city centre car parks for the afternoon, too. Sure they just can't do enough for us... In a tale of two St Marys', this was the best of times and the worst of times. The Kerry version, the match programme boasted, has turned out players to win 23 All Ireland senior medals. The Cavanmen had one Celtic Cross (one more than most of our clubs) and the holder, 93-year-old Owen Roe McGovern, spoke on the radio with broadcaster Michael Tynan at half-time. “Up Swad,†he declared, the message coming from west Cavan, via New Jersey, with almost a a century of history behind it. So, from the nosebleed seats of the press box, where the rust-coloured rooftops of the northside lent a vaguely continental feel to proceedings, we watched the contest unfold. Swanlinbar's movement was excellent; they came with a plan and they executed it to the best of their ability for as long as they could. Swad had the generals, the leaders and the foot soldiers but they came up against a superior force. The war of attrition, the close quarters combat that characterised the semi-final against Ballinabrackey, felt like a lifetime away; this one was wide open, the vastness of the pitch accentuated by the walls of empty seats surrounding it. Bryan Sheehan was at the heart of it all. Early in the first half, he carried a ball along the sideline where Gearoid McKiernan hassled and harried him for a full 25 metres before forcing the four-time All Ireland winner across the white line. Stirring stuff. Game on. Soon, Mark Cunningham had the ball in the net, audaciously taking on a defender and forcing his shot past the goalkeeper with pure power. The lead was stretched to four and the Swad support – and that of the early-arriving Lisnaskea crowd whose accents, blended with those of Galway, Cavan and Kerry, made us feel like someone was switching the dial on the radio – dared to dream and roared on their team... The tide subtly but suddenly turned a few minutes later. Sheehan floated over a 40-metre point with such effortless grace that a teammate ran 20 metres to high-five him. Sheehan's wink said it all – the Kerrymen, you sensed, now knew they had our measure. “If our leds get an urly goal, they'll win it by twinty,†announced a Kerryman in the gantry, to nobody in particular, as the troops marched down the tunnel at half-time. We shook our heads but he was nearly right, too. When it comes to winning All Ireland finals at Croke Park, history has shown that subjects of the Kingdom rarely get it wrong. They got the start Swanlinbar wanted in the second half and their swagger duly returned. St Mary's were ruthless when they hit the front for that second time, accelerating off into the freezing Dublin night. In ten minutes, they raised five flags, three of them green. That was that. The battle lost, in the bowels of the big cathedral, John Cunningham spoke. “Coming up, playing in Croke Park and representing your club, it's every player's dream and you'll always have that memory for the rest of your life. Just as a bunch of players, this year will be special for us, we'll remember it,†he said. Swad fought the good fight to the end, kept their discipline and died with their boots on, but it wasn't enough. Such is sport. If other teams show their courage and conviction in 2011, the Cavan tradition will survive for another while yet.