Kerry have named their team to take on Dublin in Sunday’s All Ireland football final, and it is not without a few surprises.
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It has taken this team five years to reach that milestone.
Key to their set up is centre back Cian O’Sullivan, who uses his awareness and ability to read the game to play the sweeper role superbly.
But this is a very special group of players led by a magnificent manager.
McMahon went on to praise Gavin and the Dublin management, saying: “We stuck to a system that we worked on for the whole year and we got the win in the end from that”.
Both teams have adapted to the defensive nature of our games at present over the previous year or two simply because they had to or else they would have been beaten by teams of lesser quality.
Bryan Sweeney and Mark Foley scored the other goals as Kerry secured their 13th All-Ireland minor triumph.
After a first half which produced 12 scores the general expectation was that the contest would open up. Maybe it was arrogance or naivety on the part of Dublin, but they were outwitted on the line, outplayed and outfought on the pitch.
Then late in the contest, with Kerry trailing by three, Killian Young looked to have an opportunity to equalise but the half-back dropped the ball at the vital moment.
Geaney levelled the game for a third time in the 26th minute but the remainder of the half was all Dublin.
The Kingdom were ridiculously casual in defence on occasion and they gifted Dublin a goal chance that went awry.
Statistically the game was a mass of contradictions.
After their usual cakewalk in Leinster they needed a test comparable to Kerry’s scare against Cork back in July and the slugfest against Tyrone.
Dublin also have another potential avenue to escape Kerry’s pressing game. But of course the only statistic that counts is the score line when the finals whistle sounds.
Manager Gavin said: “Yeah, it’s great to wake up this morning at the Gibson Hotel being All-Ireland champions”. Darran O’Sullivan 23. Paul Galvin 24.
The weather was the spoilsport, however, with heavy rain making conditions hard , particularly forwards.
“On a night like this, you don’t want to be highlighting stuff like this”.
The lessons of past defeats to Ulster teams have clearly been absorbed by both teams.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice, left, and Jim Gavin meet again at Croke Park on Sunday [Picture: Inpho]DUBLIN in Croke Park on big days has always been associated with relentless attacking football, hammering away at the goal all afternoon like a woodpecker going to war on the bark of a tree. Paul Geaney, 15. James O’Donoghue.
For all that, and without wishing to tempt fate, Kerry and Dublin should be a cracker.
“From their point of view, they will certainly look to emulate a certain element of what we did in our game”.
But this was as good as it got for them. He has built on his performances, each game. The scoring was sparse and the football was less than enthralling but crucially Kerry couldn’t get that crucial opening to test Cluxton who didn’t have a save of significance to make.
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Dublin never looked like needing either.
