1/10/2024 0 Comments Day of defeat source skins![]() This was a Championship summer like no other, a Kubrick-esque chapter in a bitter rivalry that stretched far beyond comparatively inconsequential comments about puke football and everything else that saw Tyrone and Kerry captivate a nation for so much of the Noughties.Īn All-Ireland semi-final originally due to take place on August 15, then rescheduled for six days later was eventually played on August 28 in front of just 24,000 people against a backdrop of social media scrutiny and innuendo as Covid ripped through the Red Hand ranks, fault lines of opinion firing off in all directions. Revisiting the scene is like delving into some kind of dystopian nightmare – tented testing centres, men and women in white suits, vaccination, quarantine, social distancing, swabs, self-isolation, mutations, variants, all terms that had so forcibly become part of everyday life, largely gone without trace since. ![]() That it is less than two years since such an extraordinary saga simultaneously straddled the sporting and non-sporting spheres feels barely believable, front and back pages filled daily as an unfolding drama played out in the most public, often pernicious manner. The contrast between now and August 2021 could hardly be more stark. Tickets, traffic, parking, hotels for those boasting budgets of Tubridyan proportions, these are the conversations that dominated the agenda as the swift turnaround to 3.45pm on Saturday sparked supporters into action of a practical kind, mouth-foaming passion reserved for throw-in. Words have been either watched or not uttered at all, Kingdom jungle drums packed away while hush took hold in Tyrone. ![]() Jack O’Connor had a press gig already arranged for Tralee that evening, the Kerry boss tossing forth a few token lines about the challenge ahead pretty much the height of pre-match murmurings lacking in their usual menace or mischief. THE sound of silence caught the breeze as soon as Monday morning’s draw was made, flowing freely from the wild Atlantic way in the south-west right up and across towards the shores of Lough Neagh. ![]()
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