Completely Cat

Foul Play had intended to devote this particular fortnightly instalment of the sports column with a kick™ to a deathless, roaring, blow-by-blow account of the Leinster Hurling Final, for several reasons; not the least of them being that the Dublin v Meath encounter happened to fall just outside the scope of my deadline this week.

But I suppose I should have foreseen that Kilkenny v Wexford was always likely to be an almighty pile of cack, like four of the five Leinster finals before it. A Wexford win would have upset the established order of hurling, and indeed the very cosmos itself, to a degree that defies analysis. They were priced at 5/1 before the throw-in, which if anything were extremely miserly odds, straight from the “fuck you” school of bookmaking.

Wexford did at least throw all the right shapes for the first five minutes or so, which was how long it took Kilkenny to shake themselves out of their torpor and start operating on something like two-thirds throttle. Indeed, the whole long-term future of the Leinster Championship, in its present form, starts to look distinctly grim when we consider that Kilkenny have now rogered Offaly and Wexford in quick succession while appearing to play well within themselves on each occasion.

That second half, in which Kilkenny outscored Wexford by something like 20 points to 5, was truly sad shit, offering up the kind of unrelenting tedium that can otherwise only be had for the price of an Aston Villa season ticket.

With both sets of fans streaming out of Croker as if participating in a fire drill, myself and the other hacks were forced to remain put in the press box [sic] till the bitter end in the interests of duty. Those of us who didn’t have to file copy straight away, however, drew the line at hanging around for Kilkenny captain Denis Byrne’s acceptance speech as he lifted the Bob O’Keeffe Cup. I think it’s fair to say that as an orator, Denis is one hell of a hurler.

There are certain theoretically practical but realistically unworkable solutions to Kilkenny’s current total dominance of the national hurling “scene”, such as making Eamonn Kennedy play with one arm in a sling, or locking DJ Carey in the dressing-room toilet, or forcing Denis Byrne to eschew all training sessions in favour of the corporate after-dinner circuit.

They may suffer a hiccup or two between now and September; they may fall foul of our old friends, injuries and suspensions; they may even die roaring at the hands of the gnarled yeomen of Tipperary. But one would not wager large amounts of money on it.

When nobody in the country can get within 12 points of you, you become to all intents and purposes unbackable. Kilkenny are currently so good that they have rendered the sweet science of turf accountancy all but redundant, the bastards.

Like the hurlers of Kilkenny, Zinedine Zidane has also ascended to the dizziest heights of his chosen profession, which is why Real Madrid last week saw fit to spend the equivalent of Cameroon’s annual GNP on securing his signature.

You might question the Zidane transaction by wondering why anyone should pay £45m (or £47m, or £48m, nobody seems exactly sure) on a 29-year-old who has just had two very average league campaigns with Juventus, but I suppose Real know what they’re doing.

The purchase was apparently financed by Real selling their training ground for some £165 million. Foul Play has never clapped eyes on this facility, but it must be some establishment. For that kind of money, you would expect to dig up the pitch and find the corpses of Jimmy Hoffa and Glenn Miller, the missing Dead Sea Scrolls, and twelve tons of king-hell Bolivian marching powder.

But the deal has been closed, anyway, and now “Zizou” can take his place in a squad replete with other such niggardly journeymen as Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Flávio Conceiçäo, Iván Helguera and, of course, the wretchedly unloved Steve McManaman, who is going to have to take the hint sooner or later, one feels.

You would not expect Man United to take this sort of brazen provocation lying down, and they have responded in uncharacteristically free-spirited style to Madrid’s show of largesse, lashing out £28.1 million on Juan Sebastián Verón to go with their earlier capture of Ruud van Nistelrooy.

I’m not sure whether this gives United an edge over Real in terms of overall firepower, but whatever chance we had of seeing a semi-interesting title race in England next season is now surely out the window.

Is it possible to wrap up the Premiership title by mid-November, either mathematically or merely psychologically? It looks like United are about to show us.

And meanwhile, back in the real world, Celtic continue to cast their net fruitlessly around the bargain bins of European football, in a seemingly vain attempt to strengthen their thin-looking squad ahead of next month’s Champions League qualifiers.

The Bhoys are being currently linked with the likes of Bobo Balde, Erland Hanstveit and Joonas Kilkka, none of whose names exactly make the blood sing in earnest.

Sure, by the time this issue of hotpress hits the nation’s news-stands, Martin O’Neill may well be parading the likes of Lizarazu, Kily González and Shevchenko around the verdant lawns of Celtic Park, but, like I said, you wouldn’t stick large sums of money on it happening.