A new hope
What a week!
2020 has been absolutely horrendous, we’ve never seen anything like it. A pandemic, lives lost, businesses destroyed, jobs gone, whole industries shut down, and now finally there’s hope.
2020 has strong claims to being the worst year in the last 50.
But some light appeared last weekend, a break in the clouds. Hope re-emerged after being absent for so long.
Is the storm over? No, but we can see that it will end sometime soon and that’s great.
It took until very, very late in the day, but the result was worth waiting for.
Yes folks, Cork knocked Kerry out of the Munster Football Championship, and the All-Ireland Championship. Outstanding!
The management and team deserve so much credit for building the squad and the team’s structures, ethos and work ethic so that they were in a position to strike that killer blow on Sunday as the clock ran out at the end of extra-time in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Of course, some Irish American won the US election against Donald Trump too and a Cork-based company seems to have produced the first vaccine that has a real chance of combatting Covid-19, but the real story this week is the Cork footballers!
They must be one of the first Division 3 teams to ever knock Kerry out of the championship and they were so good on Sunday, despite the appalling conditions. They lead at half-time and stayed close to Kerry in the second half, holding their nerve to force extra-time. At the end, when everyone was out on their feet, they were composed enough to work the ball to try and find an opening. That opening ended up being a speculative shot by Luke Connolly that Mark Keane had the presence of mind to finish superbly to the net.
And that was that, the witch was dead. Kerry had no time to come back.
The hurlers also had a redemptive performance, beating Dublin well in their qualifier in Thurles. Next up for them this Saturday however is an angry Tipperary, the reigning All-Ireland champions.
In ladies football, Cork had a fine win over Kerry, with the remarkable Saoirse Noonan grabbing 1-2 in a 1-14 to 0-14 win. She was back with more goals 24 hours later when she scored two for Cork City FC in their 2-0 FAI Cup semi-final win over Treaty United.
On Tuesday, her week got even better as she was called up to a 31-player squad for their final 2022 UEFA Women's European Championships qualifying game in Group I at home to Germany on 1 December. Truly outstanding!
Cork’s camogie team lost narrowly to Galway last weekend but they were already qualified for at least the quarter-finals, which they will be expected to win this weekend.
And it looks like Joe Biden (ten of his 16 great-great-grandparents came from Ireland apparently) will have our back with the Brexit talks. It’s truly been the best week in a long, long time!