[caption id="attachment_68835" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton is tackled by James Kavanagh of Kildare during the Leinster senior championship semifinal at Croke Park."]
Looking back over the past 12 months in Irish sport there were many success stories on the international front and plenty to celebrate at home also. If you are a soccer fan Ireland qualifying for the 2012 European Championships was probably the highlight of the year, while rugby supporters would have appreciated that win over Australia at the Rugby World Cup and Leinster’s Heineken Cup win. But for sheer drama Stephen Cluxton’s last minute free against Kerry in the All-Ireland football final was special for Dubs fans everywhere. It was real “Roy of the Rovers” stuff: the goalkeeper coming up the field to kick the winning point in injury time to bring the Sam Maguire Cup back to the capital for the first time since 1995.
Dublin lost the National League final to Cork by a point and looking back one wonders if they had entrusted that late free to Cluxton instead of Tomás Quinn, they might have won the double. It was a good year for Dublin hurling also beating Kilkenny to win the National League for the first time since 1939. But the Cats gained revenge when they beat the Dubs in the Leinster final, and Kilkenny went on to beat Tipperary in the All-Ireland final. Dublin also reached the minor and under 21 All-Ireland finals but they were beaten by Galway in both finals. It was Galway’s ninth win at minor level since 1983.
Wexford won the senior
and intermediate All-Ireland Camogie finals, while in Ladies Football Cork won the Brendan Martin Cup for the sixth time in seven years, beating Monaghan in the final. Clarinbridge from Galway won their first-ever All-Ireland club hurling final, beating O’Loughlin Gaels from Kilkenny and Crossmaglen Rangers won their fifth football club title when beating St. Brigid’s of Roscommon.
After the Thierry Henry handball incident in Paris two years ago the Gods were definitely on Ireland’s side this year in the play-offs. We were paired with Estonia, arguably the weakest of the qualifiers and easily qualified for the Euro 2012 finals. When we failed to beat Slovakia at the Aviva Stadium in September it looked like ‘the boys in green’ wouldn’t even make the play-offs. But then came that ‘backs to the wall’ performance against Russia away when Richard Dunne and Shay Given were the Irish heroes. That 0-0 draw in Moscow, coupled with Armenia’s 4-0 win over Slovakia the same day, meant that we had virtually secured the play-off spot. Our record in the play-offs had not been great, but we got the rub of the green in the draw, the referee was kind to us and we qualified for the finals with ease.
On the domestic scene Shamrock Rovers won the League of Ireland title for a record 17th time and The Hoops also made history by becoming the first Irish cub to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League. Rovers also won the All-Ireland Setanta Cup for the first time, beating Dundalk in the final. On the same night that Rovers clinched the premier division title, Shelbourne, who like Rovers were formed in Ringsend over 100 years ago, clinched promotion from the first division after five seasons playing in the lower division. Cork City eventually won the first division and were promoted along with Shelbourne and Monaghan, who beat Galway United in a play-off. It was a dreadful season for Galway, who won only one of their 36 league games and the only consolation for Galway was that their club president Michael D. Higgins was elected President of Ireland in October.
Sligo Rovers retained the FAI Cup for the first time in their history and amazingly it was Mayo-born goalkeeper Ciaran Kelly, who was their hero once again. Kelly replaced Brendan Clarke in the 119th minute in the final against Shels and after saving four penalties in 2010, Kelly saved two more this year to bring the Cup back to the North West. We also saw a European Cup final played in Ireland for the first time when Porto beat Braga in the Europa League Final at the Aviva in May.
In England it was a great year for the Manchester clubs. United overtook Liverpool in the championship stakes, winning their 19th title, while City beat Stoke in the FA Cup Final.
But Barcelona showed them all how to play the “beautiful game’”when they beat United 3-1 in the Champions League Final at Wembley in May.
Leinster won the Heineken Cup for the second time in three years when they beat Northampton 33-22 in Cardiff in May. And while out international team disappointed in the Six Nations they gave the so called ‘Blarney Army’ something to celebrate at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. That 15-6 win over Australia in Eden Park, Auckland in September kept many Irish eyes smiling and there could have been no complaints when we were well beaten by Wales in the quarter-finals. Credit also to Irish referee Alain Rolland who didn’t flinch on his responsibility when called on to make the right call early in the semifinal between Wales and France; he sent off the Welsh player for a dangerous tackle.
For a while this year Ireland was regarded as the golf capital of the world and there was talk of playing the British Open in Portrush in the coming years. On the final day of the US Masters in Augusta Rory McIlroy threw away a four-shot lead, but two months later the County Down golfer won the US Open by eight strokes from Australian Jason Day at the Congressional club in Maryland. Later Darren Clarke lifted the Claret Jug at the 20th attempt when he won the British Open at Royal St George. But no luck for Padraig Harrington, who split with long-time coach Bob Torrance after failing to make the cut at the Irish Open in Killarney.
Yet another great Cheltenham Festival for the Irish. On the opening day when Irish-trained horses won six of the seven races at Cheltenham, Sizing Europe won the Queen Mother Chase for Henry de Bromhead. Ruby Walsh was top jockey at the festival and Willie Mullins leading trainer. Nina Carberry became only the second female jockey to win the Ladbroke Irish Grand National when she partnered Organisedconfusion for her uncle Arthur Moore at Fairyhouse. Aidan O’Brian had another good season on the flat and his18 year-old Joseph became the youngest rider ever to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf when he rode St Nicholas Abbey to victory at Churchill Downs.
Wicklow’s Fionnuala Britton took gold at the European Cross Country Championships in Slovenia. At home there was no doubt that it was all about participation; 14,000 women took part in the Flora Mini Marathon through the streets of Dublin in May and another 14,000 runners lined up for the Dublin City Marathon on the October Bank Holiday Monday.
In March Ireland recorded an historic three-wicket win over England in the Cricket World Cup in Bangalore, but we later lost to India and South Africa and didn’t progress in the competition.
Shinty is not a sport that we in Ireland see much off and I only saw part of Ireland’s annual game against Scotland. But the skills on display in Athy that Saturday in October were fantastic, probably like hurling as it was played many decades ago.
We Irish love team events, but there were also some great individual performances during the year from people like Katie Taylor who won her 5th European Boxing title and 17 year-old boxer Joe Ward who denied Kenny Egan winning his 11th senior boxing titles in-a-row. Last month swimmer Melanie Nocher won bronze at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Poland.
We lost some well known sporting names during 2011. Philip Greene, RTE television’s first-ever soccer commentator died as did former RTE boxing commentator Noel Andrews. On the international front two former boxing greats Joe Frazier and Henry Cooper passed away as did golfer Severiano Ballesteros. At home two former GAA greats left us: Meath’s Peter McDermott, better known as “the man with the cap” and Kerry’s Dr. Jim Brosnan.
