'For 39 seconds, time stood still...'

PAUL FITZPATRICK soaked up the atmosphere at Croke Park as Cavan ladies kicked down Heaven's door.

 

Hit pause. Here’s a moment to remember forever. We’re in a corner of Jones’ Road on Dublin’s north side. From the press box, on the ceiling of the big house, we steal a glance across the city.
Outside these four walls, away from the mountain of concrete and steel, the painted faces, the heart-stopping excitement, the sweaty palms and heads in hands, life is going on. Across the rooftops, oblivious locals are eating their Sunday dinner, reading the paper, washing the car and listening to the radio. Taxi men go about their business up on Dorset St, gardai prowl their beat.
But here in Croke Park, at ground level, 30 tired footballers’  lives are on hold. To them, this is everything. There are 39 seconds to play…

***

Think of it as a play with three acts – the brooding tension, the action, the redemption. For once, though, there was a joyous ending; Cavan ladies, their medals tucked away, will live happily ever after now, the ghosts of 2011 banished forever.
The fans streaming down Clonliffe Road and the North Circular, bedecked in blue and white, were confident but there was a bit of bluster behind it, too, a sense of almost persuading themselves. “Ah, if they play to their potential they should win it,” said one man in a Cavan jersey, not altogether convincingly.
 “Jesus, we better,” warned his partner, a woman in her 30s. That summed it up – victory would be the sweetest thing because of the alternative. Every football follower in the county knows the effort this Cavan team has put in, the sacrifices they have made. To reach the Promised Land only to get turned back at the gates, again, was too awful to think about. “Jesus, we better” is right…
Outside the Big Tree, Quinn’s and Gill’s, Cavan supporters mingled with those from the five other competing counties, until it was time to drink the dregs and head for the match. Stomachs churned, with excitement but also with the worry of defeat, and the effect it would have on such a popular, hard-working, honest group of players and management, hanging like a shadow over supporters. Jesus, we better win this one…

***

So, we hopped into the elevator and made it to the roof of the theatre in time to watch the second half of the curtain-raiser and see what it meant to the players of Wexford and Offaly, 20 metres and yet worlds apart at the final whistle. Wexford stood around, heads in hands, as if at a funeral; Offaly whooped and hollered like a hen party.
That set the scene. Losing was unthinkable.  And yet, early on, it was all we thought of as Cavan looked sluggish and flat-footed, their handling sloppy, their passes going astray. They fell three points down in the time it takes to boil an egg but soon recovered their composure to take the lead, Gráinne Smith gliding along the turf and Rosie Crowe running straight through the heart of the Tipp defence.
But this was an All-Ireland final – nothing was going to come easy. High in the stand, we pulled our jackets tighter round us as the wind howled in from the bay; on the field, Tipp goaled and the spark ignited their fans.
By half-time, the Premier still led but there were signs of a revival. Gráinne Smith had raced through for a point, Aisling Doonan curled over a beauty with the left and Mona Sheridan – her father, in the bainisteoir bib, urging her on – landed another to keep the Cavan girls in touch. Gráinne McGlade made a heroic fetch which almost raised the roof of the stand, too. Cavan weren’t going away.
By that stage, they trailed by just one but still had to face into the wind. The dressing-room, we found out afterwards, was calm, with, revealed the playmaker Roisín O’Keeffe, a simple question posed. How much, the Cavan players asked each other, and themselves, do we want this?
Tipp drew first blood after the break as Cavan continued to search for the key to unlock a packed defence. Two points down, the clock ticking and facing into a gale, it would have been easy to settle for a moral victory but Cavan have tasted that dish in 2011 and had no inclination for seconds. It was time to seize the day.
It all reminded us, in hindsight of course, of the tale told about the Tyrone dressing-room at half-time in the 2003 final.
“Keep knocking and heaven’s door will be opened!” urged Peter Canavan, the Red Hands’ captain.
“F**k knocking, boys!” yelped Brian Dooher, “we’ll kick her down!”
And that’s what Cavan did. They got back to work, teenage sub Catriona Smith buzzing around the half-forward line and the deadly Gráinne Smith, Aisling Doonan and Bronagh Sheridan slicing through the clogged Tipp defence.
Rosie Crowe and Donna English were reveling in the trenches at midfield. And the backs were fantastic. McGlade was mighty, Joanne Moore – all of 5ft 4 – threw herself into tackles and the livewire Sinéad Greene popped up everywhere.
Entering the final quarter, Cavan were still two points down but there was a change in their body language – there was more urgency. With eight minutes on the stop watch, Sheridan cut inside and fired over a point with her left foot, and raised a fist towards the sky. The message was clear.
And then came the winner. Catriona picked out Aisling, who danced her way through the Tipp defence only to be scythed down. The goalkeeper headed for the sin bin and, after a long delay, Bronagh, the former soccer international, side-footed the penalty to the bottom right-hand corner. Thousands rose as one as Cavan went four ahead.
Another point would kill it off, but Tipperary’s battling qualities are well-known and they immediately hit back with a score of their own. And then they added a free and we looked at the clock – two minutes and 27 seconds to hold on, to hold on with everything they had.

***

Cavan are aware of the time, and the score, and begin to retain the ball around the middle, working short circles, recycling it with the hand. “Yon’s a dangerous game,” says one Midlands accent in the press box. He is right – Tipperary turn them over, attack in a great saffron and blue wave and soon the ball is sent over the Cavan crossbar.
The tension is suffocating as we peep out through our fingers to look at the clock. Thirty-nine seconds remain, the time it takes to tie a lace, or pour a drink. Or crush a dream.
A Tipp player stands over the ball and then, when she launches it in, high and accurate towards the Cavan square, time stands still.
Tick, tick, tick... A hand, even a fingertip, could deflect this to the net. Nobody breathes. We look away and back and there it is! Roisin O’Keeffe, the leader of the attack, soaring to claim the catch in front of her own goal.
The masses gasp and exhale. The ball is fed out of danger as the clock counts down, Ten, nine, eight, seven…
And now Ailish Cornyn has the football and she’s hurtling, soloing, towards the sideline and the long, shrill whistle sounds, she sinks to the ground and, at last, at long, suffering last, it’s over.

***

The scenes around the pitch were like those in Enniskillen when our brilliant U21s won on a wet Wednesday night in 2011. Players embraced, tears streamed down faces. It was frantic, delirious jubilation. As Come Back Paddy Reilly boomed over the PA, English and O’Keeffe climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to accept the Mary Quinn Cup as joint-captains.
Afterwards, in the bowels of the Cusack, we hung around outside the dressing-room with dictaphones, asking the girls to make sense of what had just happened.
There were more tears as players spoke of their delight and relief in, as Percy French might have put it, tones that were tender. We tried to shake hands with Gráinne McGlade but she grinned, “I’m holding half of my tooth in that hand!”
“I feel great,” she smiled. “I’m a tooth less now but I feel great.” And when asked about her late grandmother, after whom the cup is named, and how proud she would be, the full-back’s eyes filled up.
Roisín O’Keeffe was a bundle of energy when faced with the TV cameras.
“No, I’m terrible at this!” she shrieked. “What about us and our speech, we never prepared anything!”
A wizened old steward in his best Dublinese weighed in.
“The boys will be chasing ya after this, ya know wharrimean,” he joked.
Gerry Sheridan and Finian Farrell spoke of how hard their team had worked, what reward it was for “the lassies in there”.
“This took years of hard work by lots of people, we wanted to get to a stage where our ladies footballers were as well-known as our men footballers,” explained county secretary Mary Daly.
That respect was earned a long time ago but proven when thousands turned out in Virginia and Cavan Town to greet the team on their arrival back in Breffni. Home were the heroes, at last, with the spoils of war.

* See this Wednesday's print edition for full coverage.