Yesterday, I went to the NFL Finals (not to be confused with the Super Bowl) at Croke Park in Dublin. Ireland's National Football League is an annual Gaelic football tournament featuring the 32 county teams of Ireland. The 32 teams are divided into four divisions, and the top two finishers in each division are promoted one level while the bottom two finishers are demoted one level. Yesterday's games were the Division 1 and 2 finals (the main event)!
From what I saw, Gaelic football seemed similar to rugby in some ways. Players run with the ball, taking a dribble every few steps, and pass by throwing or kicking the ball to one another. You can score one point by kicking the ball through (American) football-style uprights, or three points by kicking it past a goalie and into a soccer-style goal beneath the uprights (there were none of these "goals" in the first game, the Division 2 final, but two in the second game).
In the first game, Kildare beat Tyrone 16-11 to win Division 2. It was a tight game throughout, and Tyrone actually led 10-9 relatively late in the contest, but Kildare scored seven straight times to take control. The crowd (or at least my section) was very pro-Kildare, so there was a lot of excitement during this stretch.
In the second game, under a downpour of rain, Cork beat Mayo by the same score (16-11) to win Division 1 and the NFL. Cork trailed 9-5 at halftime (each game consisted of two 35-minute halves plus stoppage time), but came out firing in the second half - scoring two goals to go with five points, while holding Mayo to only two points. This time, the crowd was very pro-Mayo and came away disappointed (although I was rooting for Cork because of my hatred for mayonnaise... call me a bandwagon fan if you must).
Despite the weather, it was very cool to experience an Irish sport firsthand (and at a relatively high level of competition)!
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