Lynch’s harsh red card sees NUI Galway collapse late on

NUI Galway 2-15

Kevin Egan in Carlow

AFTER an incredible five weeks of Fitzgibbon Cup action, crowned by some of the best knockout hurling that any competition has ever produced, NUI Galway probably should have realised that when they took a lead into stoppage time at the end of this showdown, that was the wrong place to be.

Rocky Balboa never won his big fights by carefully picking his punches, keeping a good defence and coming through on points – Hollywood demanded that he fell into trouble in the early rounds of his contests, before coming to produce a miraculous recovery and win the day.

Colleges GAA is a peculiar competition, and something of an anomaly in that unlike most of our competitions, it’s not about pride of place, or a natural affinity to the jersey. Even graduates of universities and colleges tend not to be hugely passionate about their place of third level study, so the success and popularity of the Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups is all about the quality of the entertainment on offer – both in terms of the incredible skills of the players, and the drama that they have provided.

Mikey Kiely has certainly weighed in disproportionately on that front, breaking IT Carlow hearts on Thursday evening before returning to the scene of the crime to crush NUI Galway’s dreams of a Sigerson/Fitzgibbon double on Sunday.

Of course, the argument in Galway – and a reasonable one at that – will be that Kiely’s late goal was only half the story. Perhaps even more consequential was the conversation between referee Fergal Horgan and his linesman Seán Cleere which resulted in NUI Galway centre forward Cian Lynch receiving a straight red card for what looked like a relatively innocuous tangle with Gearóid O’Connor in the 58th minute of play.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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