A case for the defence
Galway and Armagh have been two of the most well organised and resolute defensive teams in the country all season. Both sides have played 16 games between league and championship, with each only conceding goals in three matches. For their other 13 matches, Galway and Armagh have kept clean sheets.
Armagh did not ship a goal in their first six league games, before Cork finally found a way through the Orchard’s defensive wall in round seven and pillaged two goals. Armagh conceded two goals against Down in an Ulster semi-final too, but the only other green flag score against them was during last Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final win over Kerry.
Galway conceded two goals in their league opener against Mayo before Derry registered three goals on February 25th. But Galway then went on a run of eight matches without conceding a goal before a mistake clearing their lines against Armagh in the group stages of the All-Ireland allowed Tiernan Kelly steal in for a major. Armagh are the only team to have scored a championship goal against Galway this summer.
“Fantastic, yeah,” remarked Pádraic Joyce when asked about his defence following Sunday’s win over Donegal in which they delivered another shut-out at the back. “It’s something I was probably a bit naïve [about] when I came into the job, saying we were playing fancy football. We did for a long time but obviously we had to shore up our defence.
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“And that is down to the work Cian O’Neill and John Divilly are doing with the lads, they are well structured. You look at the lads in there – Johnny McGrath, Jack Glynn, Seán Fitzgerald, they are not massive giants, they are young lads that came in and to a man they are outstanding lads.
“Seán Mulkerrin and Dylan McHugh with them, playing serious football and are keeping Kieran Molloy and John Daly off that squad as well.
“It’s pleasing, definitely, and it always gives you a great chance when you are not conceding big scores.” — Gordon Manning
Kerry’s northern exposure
Jack O’Connor may well have expressed the essence of Kerry when he replied to overly excited questioning about the importance of beating Tyrone in the 2005 All-Ireland final, just two years after the ‘puke football’ affront: “It’s not like they’re giving out two All-Irelands for this final.”
Nonetheless there is something forbidding about the county’s championship record against Ulster teams, underlined by the weekend defeat by Armagh. Going into that final 19 years ago, Kerry had a break-even record against northern counties, which was a notably poorer outcome than their numbers against Connacht and Leinster counties.
The years since have been notable for a couple of developments. Firstly, the balance has worsened with two further defeats in All-Ireland finals (both against Tyrone) and one victory (over Donegal).
As All-Ireland fixtures between the provinces have become more commonplace, Kerry have benefited from playing less prominent opposition, such as Cavan and Antrim in earlier rounds.
There have also been a couple of wins over Monaghan but it was the 2018 draw in Clones – delivered late by a David Clifford goal – that effectively eliminated Kerry.
Munster counties have also come into the All-Ireland equation and Cork have lost both of their finals against their neighbours.
Dublin’s domination has also impacted on the balance sheet with Leinster – no other team from the province has beaten Kerry since 2001 – but it’s still in credit whereas the Connacht record has strengthened in that time.
The greater volume of matches between Kerry and teams from Ulster has played out in the former’s favour. Having played 19 times in 20 years, Kerry have won 12 (beating Armagh, Monaghan three times, Tyrone three times, Antrim, Donegal, Cavan and Derry twice) and drawn two (Monaghan and Donegal), losing five (Donegal, Armagh, Down and twice to Tyrone).
The problem is that the consequences of these defeats have tended to be severe. It can be argued of course that the consequences of getting beaten by Antrim in 2009 would also have been severe – although historically it has happened, in the 1912 semi-final, but Ulster continues to pose disproportionate problems for Kerry, as evidenced on Saturday.
In these last 20 years, the teams that have eliminated Kerry from championship have been mostly from Ulster, seven times. Leinster, in the guise of Dublin have done it six times with Connacht providing a solitary push, Mayo in 2017.
The impact of Ulster defeats has been to finish the tenures of four of the past five Kerry managers, including incumbent Jack O’Connor, who stepped down from his second tour of duty in 2012, having lost to Donegal. He has a year left of his current arrangement and hopes to see it out. — Seán Moran
The wisdom of crowds
In his post-match interview with RTÉ and in his press conference on Saturday Jack O’Connor mentioned the influence of the crowd. During the match commentary – as Armagh won a turnover at centre field and their supporters went ballistic – Eamon Fitzmaurice mentioned the same dynamic. The energy was inescapable.
O’Connor spoke about it, though, in terms that you would often hear from soccer managers, playing away from home, at a hostile ground. “The goal we conceded was a killer in the sense that it got the Armagh crowd into it,” he said. “I thought we quietened the crowd for large parts of the game and it just gave Armagh momentum. It is hard to break momentum.”
Croke Park is a neutral venue. Kerry supporters were welcome too. There was plenty of room.
O’Connor’s lament about his team’s failure to quieten the Armagh crowd reflected the obvious colour scheme in the stands and on Hill 16. Whatever his team might have done to inflame the Kerry support couldn’t possibly have created the same noise. “They outnumbered us fairly substantially out there,” said O’Connor.
The thousands of Kerry followers who stayed at home, most of them waiting for the final, won’t pay any attention to O’Connor’s thinly veiled rebuke. For a county that are perpetual contenders, there is a short list of games outside of All-Ireland finals that will excite a mass movement among their supporters.
The local belief would be that Kerry should be beating Armagh on their own. In the tribunal of enquiry over the coming months the role of the crowd won’t detain them for long. — Denis Walsh
Kieran Donaghy: ‘I have family members texting me saying, “We’re green and gold today!” ... I get it’
Kieran Donaghy was pretty much the last man out of the Armagh dressing room on Saturday night. It was just after five-past-nine, about an hour and 20 minutes after they had beaten his native Kerry to reach their first All-Ireland final in 21 years. He looked half-exhausted, half-exhilarated. Confused too about how to break it all down.
“Ah look, mixed emotions obviously. I’m looking at my clubmates, Dylan Casey and Joe O’Connor out there. I know what they’ve given for Kerry because I did it for 15 years. But obviously I’ve been part of Kieran [McGeeney’s] backroom for four years and I know what those boys have put into it in Armagh. I know the pain they’ve gone through.”
Donaghy isn’t the first famous name to prepare a team to play against his own county and he won’t be the last. But because he wears his heart so baldly on his sleeve, he’s maybe the most interesting. His wife and two daughters were all at the game, wearing Armagh colours in support of him. He made sure to let it be known that both his little girls had green and gold in their hair, just in case.
“It’s tough, like. I have family members texting me saying, ‘We’re green and gold today!” That’s what we are. And I get it. They followed me, I gave my heart to Kerry for 15 years, I gave it everything I could with them. So I totally understand where the family is.
“My wife and kids and my mam were in my corner. But my uncle is the most passionate Kerryman of all time. He sent me a message, it was nearly an essay, talking about what was coming and if the result went one way or the other way, how to handle it.
“It’s been a mad week. It will be a mad two weeks. I know there’s a lot of heartbroken people in Kerry. I know what football means to people down there. I’m not making any light of that, I know what that carries. It will be a tough winter. But the good thing about Kerry is that they’ll always be back.” — Malachy Clerkin
Tailteann roll of honour shows the need for third tier
It is probably fair to suggest the Tailteann Cup was not set up with the likes of Down, Meath and Westmeath in mind. Down returned to the final last weekend to get the job done, having lost to Meath in the 2023 decider. Westmeath were the inaugural champions in 2022. All three teams will compete in Division Two next season. It hasn’t been a competition for the minnows to thrive.
So, it will be interesting to see if the second tier competition can maintain its appeal in 2025 because increasingly it appears there might in fact be a need for a third tier. And if it becomes a competition picked off every other year by one of the ‘bigger’ counties who have fallen on lean times, does it fulfil its purpose in developing counties lower down the food chain?
The Tommy Murphy Cup lasted five years, from 2004-2008. It was discontinued after the 2008 season and it wasn’t until the formation of the Tailteann Cup that a second tier competition was revived. The Tommy Murphy Cup fell away because it lost its lustre, many players didn’t commit, the competition wasn’t promoted, it became an afterthought. And then it was gone. The Tailteann Cup might appear to be in a healthier state after three years than the Tommy Murphy Cup was, but apathy doesn’t take long to set in – and perhaps a third tier could be needed sooner rather than later. — Gordon Manning
