Be careful who you wish to win final

THERE’S an old unwritten thing in Gaelic Games - probably across all sports, in fact - that a beaten team or individual wishes their conqueror all the best and hopes they go on and win whatever competition or championship they’re both competing in. On one level it’s down to basic magnanimity; on the other there can be some consolation drawn if you can say you have been beaten and knocked out of contention by the eventual champions. On that basis shouldn’t the Kerry footballers and all concerned be privately hoping for Mayo to win next week’s All-Ireland football final so it can be said the Kingdom lost out at the penultimate stage to the All-Ireland champions?

Quite who the Kerry team and management will be rooting for next week is unknown and, frankly, perhaps none of them really care whether it’s Mayo or Dublin that lays claim to the Sam Maguire Cup for the winter. If the ‘cannister’ isn’t in the Kingdom then it’s likely and reasonable that no one here, least of all the players and management, care a whit who the All-Ireland champions are. Indeed, we seem to have some feint recollection of a Kerry football, active with the county team at the time, being spotted out for a walk at the precise time an All-Ireland football final without Kerry was taking place. Pain of watching on rather than indifference was most likely the reason but you get the point.

Whatever about the players bringing themselves to watching Dublin and Mayo duke in out in late September, it’s certain the Kerry management team will haul themselves either to Croke Park or a sofa behind closed curtains to see if Stephen Rochford and his players and outsmart Jim Gavin and get the better of the defending All-Ireland champions the way they did with Kerry eventually.

It’s an interesting question as to which would give the Kerry management greater cause for anguish next Sunday week: A Mayo win or a Dublin win?

The first scenario, Mayo winning, would leave the nagging feeling that but for a borderline decision here or a narrow wide there, Kerry could have prevailed in the first game against Mayo, and the logic then would follow that, well, if Mayo could and do beat Dublin then why wouldn’t Kerry? After all, in the two contests played this year between the teams Kerry have shaded it with a win and a draw. Given that Mayo had to mine a late, late equaliser to rescue the draw the first day, the regrets and minute mistakes become amplified as to what might have been.

Indeed, though there can be few regrets about the five-point defeat in the replay, the incorrect decision by the referee to send off Darran O’Sullivan on a black card to the decision by management to drop James O’Donoghue from the starting team also can come back to haunt and hurt those involved if they’re that way predisposed.

The alternative result - a Dublin win - brings its own issues. Obviously it will copper-fasten this Dublin team’s reputation as the greatest since the Kerry team of the mid-1980s, which would be the last to win three All-Ireland titles in a row. The achievement of the Kerry team from 2004 to 2009 - four All-Ireland titles and six consecutive All-Ireland Final appearances - stands among the great achievements in any era, but another Dublin win would supersede that. Aside from the three-in-a-row (the first since Kerry from 1984 to ’86) it would be a fifth title in seven years. It would be four All-Ireland titles for Jim Gavin as team manager, the same Jim Gavin who has committed to another two seasons as team boss, at least.

A Dublin victory on September 17 could also mean an extended period of further Dublin dominance given that it could be argued the challengers seem to slipping further away from the Dublin rather than getting closer.

Although this Mayo team has been written off several times over the last five or six years, there’s a very real sense that this year really is last chance saloon. They’re a team with an aging profile, have a manager who might want (or be wanted for) a third year in charge, and another All-Ireland Final defeat could really be the final straw to break their backs and spirit.

Tyrone, who are regarded as the fourth team in a Top Four elite, were shown up to be well short of the mark against Dublin in their semi-final. With Mickey Harte’s managerial future in the balance, it’s hard to know whether him staying on in charge will help or hinder this Tyrone team’s progress, but it looks as though they are some way off being genuine All-Ireland title contenders.

That’s really just leaves Kerry. Perennial All-Ireland contenders there should still be optimism in the county that with the next flush of youth coming through that All-Ireland glory can’t be too far away. And yet only this week the County Board chairman Tim Murphy has called for latitude and time for the senior management to bring through those young players in what he has called a “transition period”. It sounds like a tacit admission that the county shouldn’t be expecting an All-Ireland title in 2018 at least. Maybe even 2019.

So, a Mayo win next week might bring a modicum of consolation but is also sure to generate a head full of regrets over the winter.

A Dublin victory and it looks like they’ll be pulling even further away from the pack and look set to rewrite the record books even in a way Kerry couldn’t?

If Dublin do three-in-a-row could you really discount a fourth and fifth titles coming?

Kerry players and all Kerry football folk will look on at the All-Ireland Final with a mixture of regret, indifference and some interest. As for picking a team you want to win, it really is a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.