Maigh Cuilinn 0-9

St James’ 0-6

By Pádraic Ó Ciardha at Pearse Stadium

Sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and solitary confinement are all recognised as so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ used by the CIA to extract information from uncooperative detainees, but the boys from Langley might just have been handed their most brutally effective tool yet.

Even the most committed insurgent would surely break after being forced to sit through a couple of screenings of the first-half of last Saturday’s clash between Maigh Cuilinn and St James’. Your reporter only had to watch it once and even he hasn’t fully regained his sanity yet.

To allow the players some defence, conditions in Pearse Stadium were awful. The mist that descended on Salthill was the type that would have you soaked through in 30 seconds, and the difficulty in ball-handling made the prospect of a decent game of football about as likely as the CIA putting away the cattle prod any time soon.

Massed defences and ultra-conservative Gaelic football were the order of the day during the first 30 minutes when the sides shared the grand total of four points, heading in at the break at 0-2 apiece. That total had only been matched by the 55th minute, 0-4 each, but things did improve slightly in the final 10 minutes with Maigh Cuilinn finally pulling away.

It was probably an even less enjoyable game to play in than it was to witness but it could take both players and supporters a while yet to forget the spectacle, try as they might.

St James’ will have to get over it a lot quicker than their opponents. The Jimmies could have topped the group and gone through to the quarter-finals with a win but must now face Killannin this evening (Thursday) in the preliminary quarter-finals.

Barry Downey’s men will have to show a bit more incision in attack if they are to keep their championship hopes alive as, even allowing for the conditions and Maigh Cuilinn’s solid rearguard, they created very little at the weekend.

Pictured: Ger Davoren of Maigh Cuilinn rises highest to fist a point over the crossbar despite the best efforts of St James’ goalkeeper Cian Costelloe and defenders, Stephen McCooey and Johnny Duane. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.