THE biggest game in the Irish sporting calendar. Before the hurling fraternity get immeasurably righteous, I am what I am – predominantly a football man.
A Dublin vs Kerry final is All-Ireland footballing royalty. Akin to Liverpool vs Manchester United in soccer terms. Or the All-Blacks vs Australia.
For those with no interest in the GAA, this is a game that will transgress this boundary and come Sunday afternoon, even those with limited knowledge will either be in attendance in Croke Park (with their prawn sandwiches) or watching from some posh wine bar somewhere.
Both the Dublin and the Kerry players will be accustomed to the build-up and all the associated hype.
Both counties expect to be there at this stage – this self-confidence is to be admired.
In the noughties, Kerry re-established themselves, albeit Tyrone and Armagh both took their scalp. The Kingdom rarely venture far away from the Jones Road.
It must be hugely exciting and comforting as a Dublin and Kerry player, come July (previously August and September), Croke Park will become their new base of choice.
The same routines – just another game. For the rest of us, we have limited history of days such as Sunday coming. This is the luck of the draw, the luck of birthplace.
It takes a team of 15 and a squad of 30 to win an All-Ireland. Moreover, in the modern Championship structure, nothing has become more relevant than the size and quality of your wider squad. The days of the same 15 players lining out week in week out are over.
Sometimes I do question the logic of all the expertise in the game now regarding strength and conditioning when for a large part, the injuries are more threatening and prevalent than ever before.
However, that’s for another time. By and large, it appears both squads have no major injury concerns ahead of Sunday.
We will be watching some of the best players in Ireland and in David Clifford (pictured), if he keeps on this trajectory, he will be what Christy Ring was to hurling.
I do not mean to disrespect nor trivialise those great Dublin players who have won multiple titles in the last decade nor those players such as Pat Spillane, Ogie Moran or Jack O’Shea.
Clifford just feels a bit different to me. Without him, I doubt Kerry would have eventually beaten Derry – this is a tip of the hat to the Oak Leaf men who had him man-marked and doubled up on in some cases.
At this juncture, stopping Kerry and preventing them from winning would entail injury or kidnapping on the part of Clifford and there is only one of those options deemed legal.
Dublin have brilliance of their own – O’Callaghan had sprinkles of this a number of years ago, however his star has fallen in these last few seasons, the trajectory naturally aligning to that of the team.
With Fenton, James McCarthy and Cluxton still performing at their very best there is enough experience and class to beat Kerry on Sunday.
This game will come down to fine margins. Kerry played well against Derry and that appears to have been lost to an extent because it was so close a game and there were one or two calls that went against Derry by referee Joe McQuillan. But Kerry really had to dig deep in order to get the win. And they did.
Sunday’s referee David Gough is another man who is no stranger to the pressures of the occasion. He appears to have no issue in the limelight and like every human being, can have bad games. I just hope that an overarching common sense and consistent approach are the cornerstones for a great spectacle.
For Jack O’Connor and Dessie Farrell, the pressure is of different kinds.
O’Connor has won last year, but two in a row takes him to a different level of gratification in the eyes of the Kingdom supporters.
They are a demanding bunch and one All-Ireland title is hardly enough – the late Páidí Ó Sé knew full well of the demands in this regard.
For Dessie Farrell, with one title under his belt, you still feel that the match this Sunday is his acid test.
Given his title as manager secured during the Covid pandemic, in the depths of winter there was a surrealness to it. Jim Gavin had only just left also, so there was a carry-over from his tenure.
Farrell has had long enough now to rebuild a team and squad in his image and, fortunately or unfortunately, can accurately now be measured against the greatness of the Gavin era.
For Cluxton and many of the other older stalwarts of this Dublin side, this could be the most satisfying of all the All-Ireland titles they will have gathered in their careers to date.
Dublin have been roundly mooted to be in a rebuilding phase.
Yes while you still had them in the mix, given the last two seasons and inconsistent nature of the performances, I didn’t expect them to make an All-Ireland final, convincingly winning matches since exiting the group stage rounds.
Maybe I know nothing after all!
The Championship has been decent. No trees have been pulled up but overall the standards have been pretty good. We are perhaps too expectant when it comes to football – we expect all games to be a thriller.
There are good and bad games in any team sport. Rarely do finals ever live up to our expectations but overall in the last decade, I feel we have had value for money in that regard.
Epic games involving Kerry, Mayo, Dublin and Tyrone have by and large spoiled us to a degree. We all hope that this Sunday provides us with another classic.
Allstars, Players of the Year awards and immortality have always been earned on the third Sunday in September – however now this is the last Sunday in July. It still doesn’t have the same ring to it.
In a normal world, you would bet on it being dry and sunny, perfect conditions to crown any champion. Not now.
The only normal thing about this world is a Dublin vs Kerry All-Ireland final.
Footballing royalty that never changes.
