Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

Sunday was a bit surreal. Cork started like a house on fire, but the fire went out as quickly as it blazed. Emmet Moloney writes...

Down had the Rebels on the rack last Sunday but just couldn’t put them away. If the Northerners had manufactured just one goal chance in that first half, just one clear sight of goal for Benny, who knows if Cork could have found a way back. As it was, 16 points was enough. Just.

This was the only way Cork were going to win. They were going to fall over the line slightly, searching for the final whistle and the release that overdue victory brings. Now this is over and done with, maybe the shackles are off and they can play the football we know is in them in 2011. Hard as it is to win one All-Ireland, it might be easier for this Cork team to win two.

Redemption at last for Graham Canty, Nicholas Muphy, Derek Kavanagh and sympathy for a servant like Anthony Lynch who wasn’t fit enough to play. Manager Conor Counihan will now go down as the man who led the Rebels back to the summit and the strike – remember the strike? –will be justified once more.

History is full of teams that knock on the door for years and, once inside, they stay awhile. The Offaly, Galway and Clare hurlers stuck around to win multiple All-Irelands, while Tyrone, Meath and Galway footballers did the same in recent years. Cork might be the best equipped of all those.

Residing in Munster will help their cause. The option of peaking in June to beat Kerry or holding fire until the business end of the championship is a nice one to have. Would Counihan have risked Graham Canty, like he did on Sunday, back in Killarney in the Munster championship? Would Cody have risked Shefflin against Galway in the Leinster final?
The answer to those questions is no. Winning in September requires that the smartest decisions might be taken earlier in the year. Cork, after all, won the national football league and are now the only team apart from Kerry and Tyrone to do the double in decades.

Counihan and his brain trust deserve huge credit for the way they paced their year. They managed to win Sam Maguire without one complete display all summer. Shaky at stages in every match, this is how good they really are because we still haven’t seen the best of them.
It will be different for Down. They reside in Ulster and plotting a path from there through to the All-Ireland series is fraught. They are young in all the right places and surely their journey to the final will stand to them.

Down’s proud record had to end some time, as did Cork’s habit of losing All-Ireland finals. That’s the way the GAA goes. All good things come to an end eventually: the drive for five, the pitch invasions and even the voice.

That was the cloud hanging over Sunday. Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. The retirement of an 80-year-old man and it snuck up on all of us!

At the end of every All-Ireland football final there is a little sadness. This year it stings a little more. The year is over, the excitement of those Sundays spent in Thurles or Croke Park, or parked in front of the television, radio or computer is gone. The waiting for The Sunday Game to see what they will highlight and ignore. It’s all gone for another eight months.
Many of us turn now to the club scene and will pass a few pleasant wintry Sundays watching the unsung hurlers and footballers of other provinces thanks to the wonderful TG4. But we’ll be doing it in front of the fire and that’s not the same. And we know what’s coming down the road next May: a Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh-less GAA.

It had to happen sometime, but the inevitability doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Good luck to the man. As retirements go, we cannot think of anyone who has earned it more.

This country has had a handful of people who can be referred to by a single-word name – Gaybo, Bono, Bertie, DJ and a few more – but none had more familiarity attached to it than Mícheál, because we all knew him. Most of us met him. Literally hundreds of thousands can say they know him well. And they do.

The Farmers Journal was lucky to have Mícheál writing in its pages for over 20 years. Like everything he ever did, he took it seriously. After travelling to the far-flung GAA grounds of Ireland, he would get home to Blanchardstown late in the evening and hand-write his 800-or-so words every Sunday night. They would then be tenderly placed into the fax machine and sent to The Farm Centre.

On Monday morning, there might be a phone call or two from Mícheál to make sure it was all legible, if we could make sure we spell a man’s name right or if he could add a piece. No matter where he was in the world, that column always arrived. Year in, year out, he would travel to the Ploughing. Mícheál was born and reared on a farm three miles outside Dingle. He was very comfortable discussing the land. From his car to the 'Farmers Journal' stand and back again he would be mobbed by people. Every one of them was treated the same. The invention of mobile phones that could take pictures must have added at least an hour to his normal day!

For some, this kind of attention and adulation can travel north to a person’s head. If anything, it made Mícheál even more humble. If there is a nicer gentleman in this country then we have yet to meet him.

So, we must be happy for him. He has gone out at the very top. At 80! He impacted on so many of our Sundays, he deserves a few to himself, his family and his friends – all four and a half million of them. Winter well, Mícheál.

To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Irish Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...