What stood out more than anything for Darragh Ó Sé during “a brilliant weekend of football” was leadership. “It’s a hard thing to define,” he writes, “but you know it when you see it.” And he saw it in spades from the victors, not least from the “exceptional” David Clifford, during Kerry’s win over Armagh. Seán O’Shea, Mark O’Shea and Seán O’Brien shone too, the rest of the team playing ‘follow the leader’, and that was that, Armagh were out.
Kerry’s “masterclass” may, says Seán Moran, make them All-Ireland favourites now, but, as he quotes Kieran McGeeney, “it’s always the final chapter when it comes to sport that determines the content of the book”.
Performance analyst Paul O’Brien takes us through that 15-minute “masterclass” that saw Kerry score 0-14 without reply. It was, he says, “astonishing” that they reached the 30-point mark as early as the 56th minute when Clifford hit a two-pointer. “Game over.”
It was season over for Dublin on Saturday when they lost to Tyrone, Dessie Farrell stepping down after. Who’ll succeed him? Well, Ger Brennan is now at a loose end after leaving his Louth job at the end of a season that saw him lead the county to its first Leinster title since 1957. Gordon Manning fills you in.
And ahead of this weekend’s hurling semi-finals, Gordon talks to Cork’s Niall O’Leary about their meeting on Saturday with Dublin, “the most prolific goalscoring teams left in the competition”, and he hears from Kilkenny’s Huw Lawlor about coming up against Tipperary on Sunday.
In rugby, Gordon D’Arcy looks at how the Lions are shaping up in the approach to their first meeting with Australia, while Robert Kitson goes through the five main selection decisions Andy Farrell has to make.
Back in this neck of the woods, Ireland set off today for Tbilisi where they play Georgia on Saturday, John O’Sullivan hearing from defence coach Denis Leamy in advance of the game, while Louise Lawless talks to Lynne Cantwell, the IRFU’s first head of women’s strategy, about her vision for the women’s game in Ireland.
And Leinster will meet La Rochelle for the seventh time in six seasons after Tuesday’s Champions Cup draw put them in the same group, and among Munster’s opponents will be old foes Castres. Johnny Watterson brings you all the details, including how Connacht and Ulster fared in the draw for the Challenge Cup.
TV Watch: The Lions play the second game of their Australian tour this morning, Queensland Reds their opponents in Brisbane (Sky Sports Action, 11am). Coverage of Wimbledon continues through the day on BBC1 and BBC2, and this afternoon the women of Iceland and Finland get Euro 2025 under way (RTÉ 2 and UTV, 5pm), before hosts Switzerland play Norway (RTÉ 2 and BBC 1, 8pm).
