Donegal-Kerry decider perched on knife-edge

The upheaval of the new rules and Meath's shock of Dublin in the Leinster championship had encouraged the notion this might be something of a Year Zero for inter-county football. That everything was up for grabs.

But in the end, two of the pre-championship favourites contest the final.

The Ulster and Munster champions. The league winners and the team who might have won the league had the schedule allowed them.

The decider has been billed as a clash of styles. A formidable collective against a stable of stars. Donegal's army of ceaseless runners versus David Clifford and his hyper-extending legs.

For Donegal's blessed leader, it offers the chance to avenge a painful defeat from the past.

Jim McGuinness's seismic first stint in charge of Donegal concluded after that first All-Ireland final decider against Kerry 11 years ago.

It came in the wake of arguably his greatest managerial coup, when they harpooned a Dublin side who were already then being portrayed as close to unbeatable. It would go down as the only championship defeat of Jim Gavin's reign in Dublin.

As is often the case, the landmark semi-final display was followed by a comparatively flat final showing. Éamonn Fitzmaurice and his management team shrewdly decided that their best course of action was to essentially mirror Donegal's shape so as to avoid falling into the same trap as Dublin on the counter.

Kieran Donaghy celebrates after slotting home the decisive second goal

The result was a stinker of a game but the Kerry fans weren't too concerned. Despite their historical reputation as sniffy purists, they have tended to stay at or near the summit of the game by being very quick to adapt to changes from elsewhere.

Goals from Paul Geaney, in the first couple of minutes, and from Kieran Donaghy, after a kickout mistake, saw Kerry win one of their more unexpected All-Ireland titles in the absence of their greatest player, Colm Cooper.

"I would say until I got back involved, there wasn't a day I didn’t think about it," McGuinness said of the 2014 final, at their recent press night in Convoy. "I can remember walking about the hotel after we lost, in a daze."

Then McGuinness was gone off on his travels, lost to a world of soccer coaching and Irish Times columns.

When he finally returned on foot of several in-person appeals from members of the playing squad, Donegal had fallen into stasis, albeit much of the playing squad still had a history of winning, which distinguished them from the crop he inherited in late 2010.

The maxim 'you should never go back' has never held much weight in Donegal football, thanks to Brian McEniff, who went back again and again and consistently delivered success.

McGuinness's return has copper-fastened his status as one of the managerial greats, his achievement of winning five Ulster titles in a county that had won five in total prior to his appointment certainly up there with those managers who serially won All-Irelands with Kerry and Dublin.

Paddy McBrearty, the first player to bang on his door in the long summer of '23, said it plainly after the semi-final - "We massively, massively underachieved from '14 to '24, in our eyes. When Jim came back, standards were raised back to where they were."

The Donegal manager has certainly been careful not to over-react to the new rules. They have held fast to their running game and zonal defence principles. Wing-backs and corner-backs counter-attacking at breakneck speed, with enough gas to get back in position for the next play. Always a player running in support of the ball carrier.

The economy of their forward play has been a marvel in the last three rounds. Barely a single attack wasted.

McGuinness has once again led Donegal to an All-Ireland final in the second year of his reign

While they have ample two-point weapons in the shape of Michael Langan, Ciarán Thompson and Michael Murphy, McGuinness hasn't made two-pointers a priority and they had no interest in them in their semi-final rout of Meath.

After the semi-final, the Donegal manager spoke on the centrality of the footballing DNA within a county. They've been associated with hand-passing since '92 at least, with this folksily attributed to the high winds from the Atlantic. Back then, lamping it downfield was still the done thing. These days, Donegal rarely try a kick-pass if there's a higher percentage option.

Michael Murphy, the legislator turned returning hero, has been the chief outlet on the rare occasions they have gone long, notably in the Ulster final. Thirteen years ago, he caught a raking diagonal ball from Karl Lacey before ramming home the opening goal against Mayo. Will they toss in a couple of atypical route one balls on the big day?

They have a huge breadth of regular scorers, typified by corner-back Peadar Mogan, who has 0-14 in the championship. The other corner-back Finnbarr Roarty is a leading contender for Young Footballer of the Year. Ciarán Moore, the assassin of Mayo, has oscillated between half-back and half-forward, and buried the second goal in the semi-final.

Kerry's season has followed a trajectory that feels quite familiar. Twice in Jack O'Connor's various reigns, they've recovered from mid-season mini-crises to explode into life by the quarter-final stage.

When it was put to O'Connor after the quarter-final win over Armagh that the season was beginning to resemble 2006, he pondered a minute and replied: "I thought it was a bit more like 2009, to be honest."

One former Kerry All-Ireland winner assured us in the elevator down that O'Connor wouldn't use the press conference to vent at his local critics. The same man - not targeted, we should add - looked in a bit of a startled daze as the manager got up to leave the room 15 minutes later.

The Kerry football man persona has long been a mixture of insincere fatalism and intolerant expectancy though on that afternoon O'Connor sounded like he was fed up with it all.

The Dromid Pearses clubman, who never played for Kerry, has a shot at a fifth All-Ireland title in his 11th campaign in charge. It could be his sweetest of the lot, given the sense in mid-summer that his reign was drifting towards an abject conclusion.

Jack O'Connor has a chance to win his fifth All-Ireland title as a manager

At the outset, it was assumed that the FRC changes would benefit Kerry in particular, aligning with their more kick-pass orientated attacking game. The 2022 champions have proven especially adept at exploiting the defensive conundrums posed by the arc.

They had eschewed the two-pointers during the league. Their 3-13 and 3-24 tallies in Pomeroy and Salthill respectively contained not one two-pointer. As against that, they filled their boots on goals, scoring 17 in eight games and then 10 more in their first championship games.

Armagh in the quarters concentrated on containing Clifford and defending the arc. The main result was Seánie O'Shea enjoying a day of days and Kerry landing five doubles.

After that, Malachy O'Rourke was naturally forced to devote more attention to O'Shea and Paudie Clifford. This opened up another world of pain as David Clifford caused devastation inside with just Padraig Hampsey keeping tabs on him. The same day, Kerry also got through for a truck-load of goal chances, somehow converting only one.

The messianic talent of David Clifford - and how Donegal will approach it - has dominated much of the build-up. It's indicative of his form that conversations on Clifford now inevitably morph into a 'greatest of all time' debate. Brendan McCole, so effective in shackling Jordan Morris, is assumed to be his designated marker, though he'll be amply supported by the Donegal zonal defence.

David Clifford in characteristic pose in 2025

Midfield is the key battleground again thanks to the kickout restrictions. The coaching community have taken a dim view, regarding the shut your eyes and bomb it down the middle approach as terribly crude and unsophisticated. The public, on the other hand, appear to revel in the aerial contests.

Their devouring of the Armagh kickout in the now famous third quarter was central. In the absence of Diarmuid O'Connor, Mark O'Shea, Sean O'Brien and the indomitable Joe O'Connor have been the primary targets. Gavin White has been particularly effective at collecting breaks and with Brian Ó Beaglaíoch continuing his fine form from last year, the Kerry half-back line has emerged as one of their stronger lines.

Donegal laid waste to the much-vaunted Meath midfield in the semi-final, helped by Bryan Menton's first-half injury, hoovering up break after break. The Ulster champions also boast a big weapon in the form of Shaun Patton's booming kickout, the goalkeeper capable of landing his deliveries in the opposing half-back line, with Murphy or one of the attacking wing-backs a regular outlet.

Calling it seems impossible. Aside from their own fans, Kerry have the backing of purists who are concerned about the copycat effect.

The suspicion, however, is that McGuinness has been eyeing this game up for a long time. And that Donegal's relentless and highly structured game is a safer bet than a Kerry side more reliant on individual brilliance.

Back in 2014, two memorable, throbbing semi-finals teed up a drab final. The hope this year is that it will pan out the other way around, as the most celebrated football championship of the past two decades reaches its crescendo.

Donegal: Shaun Patton; Finnbarr Roarty, Brendan McCole, Peadar Mogan; Ryan McHugh, Eoghan Bán Gallagher, Caolan McColgan; Hugh McFadden, Michael Langan; Shane O'Donnell, Ciarán Thompson, Ciarán Moore; Conor O’Donnell, Michael Murphy, Oisín Gallen

Subs: Gavin Mulreany, Stephen McMenamin, Odhrán McFadden Ferry, Eoin McHugh, Caolan McGonagle, Aaron Doherty, Patrick McBrearty, Jamie Brennan, Niall O'Donnell, Dáire Ó Baoill, Jason McGee

Kerry: Shane Ryan; Paul Murphy, Jason Foley, Dylan Casey; Brian O Beaglaoich, Mike Breen, Gavin White; Sean O'Brien, Mark O'Shea; Joe O'Connor, Séan O'Shea, Graham O'Sullivan; David Clifford, Paudie Clifford, Dylan Geaney

Subs: Shane Murphy, Killian Spillane, Evan Looney, Tom Leo O’Sullivan, Tadhg Morley, Paul Geaney, Micheál Burns, Tony Brosnan, Armin Heinrich, Tomás Kennedy, Diarmuid O’Connor

Watch the All-Ireland Football Championship final, Donegal v Kerry, on Sunday from 2.15pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app. Listen to commentary on RTÉ Radio 1. Watch highlights on The Sunday Game from 9.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player

Click here to read article