Cora’s scoring tally is putting trees at risk
In her last three appearances on club and county duty, Cora Staunton has accumulated a bewildering tally of 12-37. If you don’t have a calculator on hand, that translates into 61 points between frees and scores from play.
And in her most recent outing against Tyrone in Ballinamore, she picked all of Mayo’s first half 1-09.
Her ruthless thirst for scores is causing writer’s cramp in sports journalists trying to document her moments of glory. And if she continues to sustain these standards, it won’t be long before environmentalists say no more to this madness and start chaining themselves to trees.
Won’t someone please think of the trees?
WGPA reps on opposing sides
For the first time since its official launch in January, two co-founders of the WGPA faced each other in a championship game when Mayo took on Tyrone in a Senior All-Ireland qualifier game.
Fiona McHale, secretary of the WGPA, lined out at half-forward for the Mayo side while Gemma Begley was operating at full-forward for Tyrone.
In the WGPA head-to-head, Fiona McHale outscored her colleague on the executive with a personal tally of 1-1 to Begley’s one point from a free.
Poetic justice in the coin toss debacle
After a week of disputing rulebooks and demanding a call for common sense, Dublin and Clare finally played that much anticipated coin-toss play-off.
Dublin went on to win the fixture on a 1-11 to 0-12 scoreline to secure a once and for all legitimate berth in the Quarter-Final stage of competition.
In retrospect, the win is deserved when you consider that Dublin should theoretically have qualified on a points for and against basis. They scored 51 points and conceded 57 compared with Clare’s 59 points for and 72 against.
But the fairy tale weekend was crushed when Dublin shipped a three point defeat to Wexford. The Dubs couldn’t conquer that 48 hour turnaround in the end, but they gave it a valiant shot.
Gulf in standard between Intermediate and Senior narrowing
In a pulsating encounter, Sligo defeated Roscommon as part of a TG4 Ladies football double header in Ballinamore after the Mayo/Tyrone clash.
Both sides put on an exhibition of great football that amounted to just a two point difference in the end. And among the spread of talent were some individual performances worthy of a trial on senior squads.
Although she was on the losing side, Roscommon midfielder Jenny Higgins was operating on an engine that would sustain any footballer at any standard, through a full game. Meanwhile, Sligo’s Emma Hansbury exuded all the skills she’s acquired from a dual sporting career in soccer and GAA.
Any defender at senior level willing to leave this goal forager idle would soon learn the cost of their naivety.
Lobsided margins still a problem
It was a weekend of inequalities across both the male and female GAA codes. And in women’s senior football, the total margin separating opponents came to 64 points as Mayo and Cork devoured Tyrone and Meath respectively.
These billings produced 11 goals and the losing teams were limited to just three scores each.
