The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Dublin and Kerry should reach final destination
This year’s old-school championship format gives us a clear pathway to speculate what might happen
AREN’T we at risk of getting way out ahead of ourselves here? Well, yeah, probably we are, but really there’s no harm in dreaming, is there?
Pretty much as soon as Croke Park confirmed the format for this year’s Football Championship – and especially once the provincial draws were confirmed – it was impossible not to look ahead and speculate what might be.
The stress here is very much on what might be. There will be a hell of a lot of twists and turns before we get to December 19 and the All-Ireland Senior Football Final. Still, though, with the old-school format for this year’s championship it’s much easier to plot out a path for how far a team might go and how they might get here.
There’s no Super 8s or backdoor to gum up the works and make it next to near impossible to speculate as to who might be in an All Ireland Semi-final or Final months in advance. This year – for the first time since the turn of the century – we have that opportunity.
And from where we’re sitting it looks as though a Kerry v Dublin final is the most likely outcome given that the Munster and Leinster champions will avoid each at the semi-final stage and can only meet on the show-piece occasion.
The above sentence would probably give Peter Keane heart palpitations. He’s not a man given to flights of fancy. His sole focus and that of his players will be on the clash between his men and Ronan McCarthy’s Rebels at the beginning of November.
Rightly so, there’s absolutely nothing guaranteed in Páirc Uí
Chaoimh later this year. Cork are a coming force. Outside of arguably Pádraic Joyce’s Galway, Cork are the coming force in Gaelic football at the moment.
That assessment is based more on what they were able to do in last year’s Championship than in this year’s National Football League. For a side of Cork’s stature storming through Division 3 should very much within their capabilities.
Even so, to have done as well as they have and to have gained promotion – they were essentially promoted before the shutdown – will have done wonders for Cork’s mindset. Winning is a habit. Momentum is a wonderful thing.
Yeah, sure, Division 3 football isn’t remotely comparable to the Division 1 football Kerry have been playing and will get the chance to play in the final two rounds of the disjointed National League, but still it’d take a fool to write off the Rebels.
God knows, Cork are due a win over Kerry.
They haven’t toppled the Kingdom in Championship in over eight year.
The Rebels’ last win over Kerry came in
the
Munster semi-final (which is when the two teams will be meeting again this year) in Páirc Uí Chaoimh (which is where they’re meeting this year).
If we can be certain of only one thing, it’s that if Kerry are to advance to the Munster Final they’ll be made work for it. Still, when you weigh it all up, seeing the quality of player Kerry have at their disposal, when you consider what they were able to do last year it’s quite difficult to look past them and, if they do see off Cork, the All-Ireland semi-final awaits.
Who they’ll have to play in the Munster Final to get there is a little up in the air. Had you asked us this before the lock-down we’d have installed Colm Collins’ Clare as the best of the rest in Munster, but with Tipperary welcoming back Michael Quinlivan, Liam Casey, Paudie Feehan and Colin English, perhaps the balance has shifted there.
Limerick’s strides under Billy Lee have been impressive and they should have enough to see off Waterford, but it would be a surprise if the winner of Tipperary of Clare didn’t account for them in their semi-final and it would be the mother of all shocks if Kerry didn’t down whoever emerged.
In Ulster a lot will be decided in the opening weekends as the four major contenders come face to face in preliminary round or quarter-final games. You’d fancy a Seamus McEnaney-inspired Monaghan to see off Cavan just about, but the clash of Donegal and Tyrone is the jewel of the early rounds of this year’s championship.
A couple of months ago things didn’t seem to be going altogether that well for Mickey Harte and Tyrone, but the
return to the fold of Cathal McShane put a pep back in their step. True, he did subsequently suffer a serious ankle injury, but by the time the championship gets up and running now McShane should be well recovered.
It’s a hard one to call two months out without the benefit of form and, as much as we prefer the way Donegal go about their business, something tells us Tyrone will the ones left standing after that Ulster semi-final and go forward to face the Dubs in an All-Ireland semi-final that they’d more than likely lose.
About the only thing we can say with close to absolute certainty is that Dublin will be Leinster champions again this year. They’re that much ahead of the chasing pack.
Certainly it’s hard to see anybody denying them a place in the Leinster final and, while on the other side of the draw the probable clash of Kildare and Meath should be a doozy, neither side have what it takes to stop the Dubs right now.
West of the Shannon – that poor benighted land without a cabinet minister – it’s all set up for an old-firm Galway v Mayo final, albeit that Roscommon are more than good enough to upset Mayo for the second year running.
To be honest it wouldn’t be a major surprise if any of the big three in Connacht emerge to face the Kingdom in the All-Ireland semi-final. On pre-Covid form Galway look the men to beat – the way they put it up to Kerry in Austin Stack Park speaks to their quality – but the proviso hanging over all of this is that we’ve no real form to base any of this on.
Even after the final two rounds of the league are completed in October that will still largely be the case. As much fun as it is to look forward and speculate we have to do so with even more humility than normal.
From here you’d fancy Kerry to win an All-Ireland Semi-final with the Connacht champions, but in five months time? Who’s to say.
Let the games begin.