YOU CAN'T TURN MAC THE HANDS OF TIME..

THE scoreboard never lies.

- BY GARRY DOYLE

But sometimes it fails to tell the whole truth.

And this was the situation after 56 minutes of Sunday's All-Ireland. On the giant screen above Hill 16, the bare details were outlined: Kerry 0-22, Donegal 0-18.

There was no question over who had been the better team.

Yet across the previous 15 minutes, Donegal had outscored Kerry by eight points to three. Better again, they were just after thieving Shane Ryan's kick-out, the play transferred towards Paddy McBrearty, so often their hero, introduced here as a potential saviour.

Except there was a problem.

McBrearty is so long in the tooth that his debut came way back in 2011, during Jim McGuinness's first spell.

Time remains unbeaten. It affects the body, erodes pace, stops a footballer reproducing the things their younger self managed to effortlessly do.

And that was the dilemma McBrearty was up against. As the ball edged towards the touchline, he had a choice. Bend low but risk allowing the ball to creep over the sideline or kick it along the ground towards a colleague.