When you get to this point of the season, there’s no room for cuteness or messing. I know people are accusing Ger Brennan of playing mind games by saying all the pressure is on Kerry this weekend but I don’t see it that way. Kerry are odds-on favourites for Sam Maguire and they have a squad that’s definitely good enough to win it. Ger is right, that brings pressure to go and get it done.
So I don’t think he was playing mind games at all. To me, his Dublin team are in the exact same position Kerry were in 12 months ago. They had their wobble in the middle of the championship, losing games they’d be expected to win. But they’ve got most of their main men back fit and they’re coming into the semi-final without too many people fancying them. That describes Kerry’s 2025 season to a tee.
Kerry blitzed Armagh at this stage last year when very few people were expecting it. They were able to play with no pressure because they didn’t know yet how good they could be or what sort of level they had in them. They know it now. The only thing about that is you have to go and live up to it.
The thing people don’t realise is that at the top level of the game, there’s really no such thing as outside pressure. When you get to that stage, you’re too preoccupied with the pressure you’re putting on yourself to worry about what people in the outside world who don’t know you think. The pressure you put on yourself is by far the biggest thing.
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So it’s not about trains being booked out or supporters getting hyped up or anything like that. It’s about you and what you expect of yourself and what you’re going to do to make it happen.
I played on some Kerry teams that were expected to win the All-Ireland but those expectations were never the motivation. Instead, you’d have a year like 2007 when we were favourites for the final against Cork. At no stage did the pressure come from being expected to win that day. The pressure came from convincing ourselves that under no circumstances could we become the first Kerry team to lose to Cork in an All-Ireland final. That’s how a player’s mind works.
Kerry have come through a battle against Tyrone that I think will stand to them. Watching the hurling over the weekend, you saw Cork and Limerick both go in as favourites and both have the opposition tearing into them. But Limerick had the tools to work their way back into it against Clare. Cork didn’t have those tools against Galway.
I think Kerry have the tools. During that Tyrone game, there were a couple of times when one of the Cliffords popped up with a score when it was needed. They weren’t shooting the lights out, but they were sensing the state of the game and running in and fisting a point to keep the scoreboard ticking. The gears were always there when they needed them.
Do Dublin have those gears? Maybe. They have enough proven All-Ireland winners in the team, for one thing. You can see the likes of Con O’Callaghan, Ciarán Kilkenny and Niall Scully standing up, as if they’re offended at not being taken seriously after all these years. We know they have the gears.
What we don’t know is whether the newer lads around them will be able for a test like this. That’s why they’re like Kerry were last year. Kerry didn’t know if Mark O’Shea or Seán O’Brien were the real deal until they showed they were in crucial moments against Armagh and Donegal. Same goes for the likes of Charlie McMorrow and Seán Guiden and these lads for Dublin this time around.
In the end, I see a Kerry win by three or four points. But would I be shocked if Dublin turned out to be this year’s Kerry? Definitely not.
The other game is so hard to call. Mayo haven’t made it to this stage of the championship since 2021 but they have built their way through this season and you know the way they are – once they get to Croke Park, they find a bit of swagger. Louth haven’t been to a semi-final in nearly 70 years, so this is a completely new experience for everyone in the county. What a chance for either of them to make a final. Nobody was predicting that at the start of the year.
You couldn’t buy the experience Louth got the last day against Monaghan, playing for 65 minutes with 14 men. Coming through a battle like that is worth a year of bonding sessions and team meetings and training camps. They were put through the tumble dryer and they came out the other side a completely different team.
What sets teams apart at this stage of the championship? Everybody is as fit as the next team. Everybody should be able to reach the same intensity as the next team. Sometimes, there will be an exceptional player who makes the difference, but it’s rarer than you think.
No, what generally makes the difference in these games is decision-making. That’s what usually separates teams of equal ability. And the only way to get better at decision-making is through making mistakes and learning from them. Through getting yourself into trouble and finding a way out.
Louth could not have beaten Monaghan through fitness or intensity or talent if they hadn’t made the right decisions constantly throughout that game. The pay-off for doing that and winning is that no matter what situation they find themselves in now, they know it can’t be worse than what they’ve already faced. That’s a massive weapon to have at your disposal.
Will it be enough to beat Mayo and make it to an All-Ireland final? Possibly. The thing that makes me lean towards Mayo is the fact that there’s still a core of players there who know what it’s like to face into a game like this. Even with all the changes over the years, there’s still probably close to a dozen players in their squad who have played in an All-Ireland final.
I think experience matters and it might just be enough to see Mayo through this one.
