NO MATTER WHAT happens this Sunday, we won’t be treated to the visual assault on the senses that was The Sunday Game night time show last weekend.
We had Marty Morrissey chatting Darragh O’Donovan and Gearoid Hegarty on the Limerick train station platform, followed by Joanne Cantwell chatting to the tracksuited John Kiely and the baseball-capped and shorts-wearing Cian Lynch in the Woodlands House Hotel.
For as long as we care to remember, we have become accustomed to seeing the winning team leaning back in uncomfortable suits as they trot out the clichés. Limerick was something very different. You can imagine a hot food buffet of lasagne and chicken goujons just off camera.
Not for Dublin and Kerry. Oh, no. There are standards to maintain here. Dublin will be having their post-game function in the Gibson Hotel, a second home to them and one reflective of a certain corporate feel to the hotel and team.
Kerry are in the Burlington, an old favourite.
We suspect that the cameras might well be heading towards the Gibson.
During the week, Jack O’Connor made sure to say that Dublin were ready to throw the kitchen sink at this final. He also noted that the style of the game will be a throwback to some of their most entertaining jousts.
We don’t think so. It won’t be like the drawn 2019 final. Or the classic 2013 semi-final. Instead, Kerry are built to be a bit more pragmatic than that now.
Which will suit Dublin. If it becomes a more tactical affair, they are still the team with the greatest number of players with an expansive skillset.
James McCarthy and Brian Fenton will be expected to put significant light between them and opposing pairing Diarmuid O’Connor and Jack Barry.
Brian Howard will act as sweeper, and while Derry earned new admirers for how they approached the semi-final against Kerry, they still might have been counting on David Clifford not getting quite as much on Chrissy McKaigue.
With Mick Fitzsimons down to mark Clifford, Howard will drift off in front of him. It seems simple, but they will have to leave Kerry then with a free man.
Kerry will also drop off to leave a free man. They did to Tyrone by nominating Michael O’Neill – more a destructive than creative player – to have the ball as much as he liked. Few fit that bill in the Dublin team though.
There is talk around the scene that should Dublin manage to eke this one out, then the team could be in for a brutal winter of retirements.
While the returns of Paul Mannion and Stephen Cluxton have gone better than could have been expected, Jack McCaffrey seems to be trusted with no more than half a dozen big sprints in a game.
It’s difficult to imagine any of that trio back for 2024. But the rumours are swirling around a whole host of other players, including Con O’Callaghan, Niall Scully, Brian Howard and even – gulp – Brian Fenton who might be down for a spot of travelling.
So if this is it, it’s been a fine innings by some of the finest footballers to play the sport. Cerebral, confident and assured, they have always carried the odd outlier for the big moments. But they no longer have the one Clifford-level genius in Diarmuid Connolly. This team is many things, but not at the same level as the six-in-a-row side.
Doesn’t mean the spine of that crew can’t squeeze another one out.
Hasn’t it been a full life, and isn’t this a good end to it?
