All-Ireland SFC final: Galway v Kerry (Sunday, 3.30pm, Croke Park, live on RTÉ2 and Sky Sports Arena)
“You’re always reminded of what they could do, how high they could jump, how fast they could run. They have the medals to prove it.”
A SALTHILL man, just some random fan, stands by the bar in Meagher’s, his eyes widened with an excitement he hasn’t felt in years. Must be in his mid-30s, wondering if they can keep up their good semi-final record against Derry.
Before every game Galway play, he tells me, he meets up with his mates and they watch A Year ‘Til Sunday on YouTube. Every single game.
Clips from the classic 1998 documentary have been doing the rounds since the semi-final win and there have even been suggestions of a sequel, with director Pat Comer having been in around the setup this summer.
The quote at the top of the page came early in the documentary from Michael Donnellan. The legacies of his grandfather of the same name and father John weighed heavily on his young shoulders. But with the jersey hanging loose he began to express his own freedom and wrote his own history, perhaps greater than what had gone before.
Padraic Joyce became the Seán Purcell of his generation.
And now as he stands on the line, he wonders if Shane Walsh can take his mantle, or Matthew Tierney from Ja Fallon, Paul Conroy from Kevin Walsh, Sean Kelly from Ray Silke.
Kerry are not the only ones here with tradition.
Kerry are not the only ones here with a chance.
David Clifford and Sean O’Shea and Diarmuid O’Connor will retire with a clutch of All-Ireland medals and with reputations to match the Spillanes, the O’Sheas and the O’Sés. They just will.
Maybe psychologically they’ve won this one already, so reinforced their armour will feel after beating Dublin. When Kerry feel invincible, they tend to be invincible.
Yet even the value of wins over Dublin are subject to recession.
Take the value of Mayo’s dramatic semi-final win last year, slashed by Tyrone, leaving James Horan standing with the look of a man who’d just discovered he’s been sold a Mica house.
Kerry are a flawed outfit. An outfit with all the capabilities to be as breathtaking as the Jack O’Connor sides that would gut Mayo and Cork on these big days. They could put you through the shredder in 20 minutes.
But they’re equally capable of losing games they should win.
Last year’s All-Ireland semi-final cut them deep. Tyrone clogged up the middle of the goal, Kerry kept running into it and spitting up their dinner. Caught them for three goals and took away an All-Ireland.
When Kerry get shots away, they seldom miss. They’re hitting 60, 70 per cent every day.
Yet when Dublin drew them into a battle in the last half hour two weeks ago, the frailties squeezed their way to the front.
Kerry had 11 attacks in the final half hour. From the first nine, they scored just twice.
That’s become an unwanted branding in tight games. They shouldn’t have needed Seanie Shea to pay a bail that looked beyond the means of any normal man.
But when it was needed, it was there, and that’s hard to get past when you’re arguing a case for Galway.
Jack O’Connor’s found the role for Tadhg Morley that Peter Keane ought to have. They’ve entrusted Jason Foley. They’ve given Tom O’Sullivan licence to be what he can be.
The numbers back it all up. Not only the lack of goals but the absence of big foul counts. Just four scoreable frees given to Dublin, three of them taken. Of 1-45 conceded in championship, just 0-12 off frees.
Still and all, there’s the feeling that Damien Comer will give them something they haven’t faced. Dublin were a team without a kick in them until Paddy Small came on. They’d kicked one ball inside in the first 40 minutes and it bounced straight back out off Dean Rock.
They kicked five to Small in the last half hour and got 0-4 off it. He broke the game open and facilitated the recovery because he was a ball-winner, and Kerry haven’t had to face those.
Con O’Callaghan’s absence was akin to Ryan O’Donoghue’s for Mayo.
Without those men, that Dublin bent the wire so far back and that Mayo were well in it after 45 minutes does leave question marks.
Comer has 6-20 to his name this year, all but a point from play. And while he scored the two goals in the semi-final, there was almost as much value on his two late first-half points that brought them into the game.
Dublin pulled Tadhg Morley out of the sweeping role three times. They scored 1-1. When they countered off Kerry’s increasing spillage in the second half, the space was there.
What will be interesting is where Comer actually plays. He’s rotated all year and that could be joyful for Galway here. Move out, he gets himself one-on-one to run at Foley. That potentially draws Morley out a bit too.
If that happens Galway will target Graham O’Sullivan, but they’ll need Rob Finnerty to be much better than he was against Chrissy McKaigue.
And we haven’t mentioned Shane Walsh. If he has a good day, the bottom line is Galway absolutely have the attacking tools to win an All-Ireland here. They have the midfield to win an All-Ireland. But do they have the defence?
Sean Kelly is the Allstar full-back in waiting but almost certainly won’t be at full-back on David Clifford. Having tagged Shane McGuigan, that’s a task likely to fall to Liam Silke.
Kelly could even end up at six on Sean O’Shea, but it seems more likely he’ll mirror Tadhg Morley’s role. As plenty have found out, if Clifford gets the ball you’re in bother no matter who you are. A full-back has to rely on the supply being strangled, something which Galway have been good at.
There are still doubts about some of them in one-to-one situations. Paul Geaney was poor the last day but will fancy a run at Jack Glynn. Kieran Molloy can be brilliant but is prone to switch-offs, a couple of which were almost very costly against Armagh.
As a collective Galway have become very hard to break down. And with Gavin White’s availability on a knife-edge, they’ll feel there’s a real safety in numbers against a team that would have no huge running punch from deep without him. Tom O’Sullivan will find gaps but Kerry still want to kick the ball in and if you stop them doing that, they get flustered.
So there you have it. A thousand words of all the reasons why Galway have a very, very good shot at winning this All-Ireland.
But as with the game itself, a preview comes down to the final stretch.
And even though every bit of evidence tells you Kerry struggle with the last bend, they’re playing a Galway team that just haven’t felt that burn in the legs.
Kerry could blow Galway out of it or they could need David Clifford to be their Alastair Brownlee and drag his brothers to the line and push them over.
Whatever way they do it, the Kerry men will skip the queue at D Two and their people will marvel at what they can do, how high they can jump, how fast they can run.
And they’ll have the medals to prove it.
