Sars v Na Fianna: Where did it all go wrong for the Munster champions?

Last week, ahead of their All-Ireland final, Sarsfields’ Conor O’Sullivan spoke about his experiences with the club, from the early years of glory to now, and everything in between.

There was one point he made though, which stood out.

“We lost to UCC one year and we just didn't do ourselves justice,” he said. “Whatever about being beaten by a better team when you're putting it all out there, but when you lose as badly as those games it's just soul-destroying.” 

No doubt the team will have come away from Croke Park with that same soul-destroying feeling. And that is disappointing.

Not because we all know that Sarsfields could have won that final, but because of the way they lost.

It was a completely one-sided affair. Na Fianna ran away with it.

By the end of the half the damage done was already beyond repair.

The second half was much better. An improved performance, a lot more akin to the Sars we’ve grown accustomed to over the past two years. But that counts for little when the result was the same. That’s the way they’ll always see it.

SHORTCOMINGS 

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly went wrong for the Riverstown side. Not much changed between their starting fifteen against Slaughtneil. In fact, the changes were exclusively positional.

Cillian Roche started at corner-back rather than on the wing, with Conor O’Sullivan at full-back, Leopold in the other corner.

That meant Bryan Murphy moved to wing-back, and again Sars went for height in the forwards with James Sweeney and Aaron Myers in the corners, though the two were flexible in their movement and often dropped deeper.

It looked like Sars were trying to do too much all at once from the start. Maybe that’s because of how well Na Fianna were setup and played, but it was tough to figure out exactly what the Cork side were trying to do.

There was a lot of Sars movement off the ball, but it seemed to do more harm than good, aside from the couple of early goal chances forged. Na Fianna took a man-to-man approach in the forwards, and they reaped the rewards after their aggressive start.

They punished a Sars team still in the process of settling into the occasion. They did so with a plethora of early scores.

BLAME 

You can point the finger at Sarsfields.

You can blame Jack O’Connor and Cathal McCarthy for not finding a way through early on. You can blame Paul Leopold and Conor O’Sullivan for not doing enough at the back. You can blame Luke Eilliott for drifting too far forward in the half-back line. Or you can blame Johnny Crowley for overseeing the whole thing.

I think playing the blame game is unfair in this situation.

Yes, Sarsfields didn’t do enough as a team, they’ll say that themselves.

The fact it’s hard to pinpoint any particular mistakes or errors made by Sarsfields is telling. You can’t blame any one individual for the defeat. Ultimately, Na Fianna were the better team.

Niall Ó Ceallacháin’s men were absolutely outstanding. Their performance from start to finish was unrelenting. They wanted that title, and they weren’t going to accept anything other than victory.

AJ Murphy was phenomenal at full-forward. How can you blame the Sarsfields’ defenders when a player plays as well as that? Some of the runs he made and scores he popped over were sheer class.

Given the circumstances he’s had to deal with over the last couple of years further adds to that. If this Sars group has been through a tough few years, so has AJ.

In my opinion it feels wrong to put too much blame on Sars.

Between 1985 and 2000, Na Fianna didn’t have the numbers to enter a team in the Dublin minor hurling championship. The last time Na Fianna were on the All-Ireland stage was when their footballers reached the 2000 All-Ireland final.

They’ve put in decades of work to get to this point, and unfortunately for Sars they weren’t going to stand in Na Fianna’s way.

Regardless Johnny Crowley’s men can look back with pride on what has been an unforgettable campaign.

They will be back.