DUBLIN’S domination is a tougher challenge to Kerry football than the one that they faced from Tyrone in the 2000s, believes Kingdom forward Donnchadh Walsh.
Gaelic football’s most successful county were thrice denied Sam Maguire by the Red Hands in the previous decade, with Tyrone beating them en-route to All-Ireland successes in 2003, 2005 and 2008.
Walsh made his debut in the last of those years but it took Kerry until 2012, when many of that Tyrone team had begun to drift off the scene, to finally register a Championship win against Mickey Harte’s golden generation, winning a Qualifier by ten points in Killarney.
Their failure against the Ulster side in that era led to changes in Kerry’s style of football and alongside Mayo, they have brought the primary challenge to Dublin since 2011.
But defeats in the All-Ireland finals of that year and 2015, as well as the semi-finals of 2013 and 2016 and last year’s Allianz National League final, leave no doubt as to the dominant partner in the latest age of an ancient rivalry.
Dublin’s achievement of going through the whole of last year unbeaten, and now reaching this month’s O’Byrne Cup with virtually their third-string side, underlines the challenge that Kerry are facing.
Cromane clubman Walsh, speaking at yesterday’s launch of the Allianz National League in Croke Park, believes that the week-on-week reliability of Jim Gavin’s side makes them an even bigger mountain to climb.
“Is it greater? I think, eh, it's a hard one to say because Tyrone had us really... you know, beating us in three All-Ireland finals.
“It is tougher maybe. Dublin have reached this level of consistency where maybe Tyrone hadn't.
“Tyrone would come strong for a year and they wouldn't do so well the following year whereas Dublin are consistently winning leagues, winning All-Irelands now as well, so I think you would be right to say that it's a bigger challenge for Kerry now.”
Dublin start the year aiming for five-in-a-row in Division One, and are looking to become the first team from the county to win three All-Irelands on the spin since 1921-23.
They are the only team to have beaten Kerry in the Championship since Donegal in 2012 and with the League just about to get underway, Walsh admits to the potential of obsession with breaking that Indian sign.
“It is very easy to become obsessed with them. Every night you go out for training you could just totally focus on them.
“But we've the first round of the Allianz (league) against Donegal up in Letterkenny and if you're not 100 per cent focused on that game you'll be getting a hiding up there.
“They're always going to be at the back of our minds, Dublin, 100 per cent, and they have been since we lost the semi-final to them last year.
“That's grand, they can stay there at the back of our minds and until they need to be at the front of our minds, that's where they'll stay.”
Walsh also feels that Aidan O’Mahony’s retirement will be the last in the wave of exits from the Kerry panel.
With Marc Ó Sé having announced his decision at the end of the season and fellow defender O’Mahony calling it quits yesterday after a career that brought him five All-Ireland medals, the Kerry squad will be a bit lighter on experience in 2017.
But Walsh, who admitted he was surprised by O’Mahony’s decision, allayed fears over the futures of Colm Cooper and Kieran Donaghy, revealing that both have been back in camp and that he expects no further retirements.
“He probably had made his mind up a while ago, I’m not too sure what his thinking process around it was but physically he could have given it another year but obviously you need to be fully committed to it mentally as well then.
“There was no problem in his physical ability to go on another year but he’s decided against it.
“I’m fairly confident that will be it. We’ll be putting the head down and knowing the numbers we have for the rest of the year.
“They [Cooper and Donaghy] are definitely back as far as I can see. You don’t like that uncertainty so it is a good boost, yeah.”