Eager Kerry on a mission to halt Dublin’s gallop

Strange days in April: Kerry and Dublin in a match that seems to carry all kinds of hidden significances and a sold out Croke Park on league final day.

It was a masterstroke by the GAA to hold their Laochra commemoration of 1916 directly after this year’s Division One final but somebody up in Croke Park had novenas answered when it came to the participants.

It may be the most venerated rivalry in Gaelic games but Kerry and Dublin seldom meet in spring. Sunday’s encounter is their first since 1987.

The Allianz League deserves this sort of climactic finale because it has been intriguing throughout the spring, from Roscommon’s insurrectionist form to the wars of attrition in the lower divisions through to Dublin’s eight wins from eight outings.

When Dublin hosted Kerry on opening night and won with a couple of goals to spare, it seemed as if the Kingdom were, once more, going to show scant interest in the competition and just do enough to get by.

Inevitable showdown

But for the past five rounds and their semi-final win, they have been scything through opponents in a way that locked them into an inevitable showdown with Dublin. Both sides rolled through their respective semi-finals with crushing ease to set up a repeat of last year’s All-Ireland final.

The long storied history between the counties and the sharper memory of last September’s encounter will give Sunday’s game its flavour.

Dublin are seeking their fourth league title in a row and there has been something in Kerry’s demeanour in the league which suggests that they feel it is time to put a halt to that gallop. Can they? The remarkable aspect of Kerry’s resurgent winter has been the form of their senior class men.

Kieran Donaghy, Aidan O’Mahony and Bryan Sheehan have been travelling the field with the energy and application of debut boys while Colm Cooper looks to be falling into the delightful rhythm that is his and his alone.

Beaten All-Ireland teams are supposed to look heavy-hearted and vulnerable in the following season. Kerry, however, look vengeful. They like to tell you in Kerry that it is the lost All-Irelands which they think about most often.

This year’s league form has been fired by that grievance and whether or not they wanted to meet Dublin just now, they weren’t going to blink.

If Kerry have been revived by familiar names, it is Dublin’s revolving cast of promising stars which continues as the story: Brian Fenton, Eric Lowndes and the returned Paul Mannion are among those turning heads as Jim Gavin continues to rotate his enviable squad.

Ongoing domination of the league is the immediate goal for Dublin but the underlying theme of this match involves the tussle for an edge if not outright supremacy going into the All-Ireland summer.

The Division Two final reflects the sense of a shifting order in Ulster. Tyrone is the county most often whispered about as the one that could come out of nowhere this summer to break the Dublin-Kerry hegemony. Last year summer’s response to league relegation and Ulster championship elimination in Donegal was to heal through the qualifiers and push Kerry to the limit in the All-Ireland semi-finals.

Old place

This final against Terry Hyland’s young Cavan team is perfect for Mickey Harte: a return to Croke Park on an afternoon when the old place will be hopping and a chance to test themselves against another Ulster contender.

It seems like a long time ago since the counties met in the opening round of the league when Tyrone registered a two -point win in a low-scoring game. Hyland’s assertion that this final matters more to Cavan precisely because they seldom appear at silverware occasions is undoubtedly true. Seanie Johnston returns to the Blues’ full-forward line and the hope must be that they will go for it here, with nothing to lose.

And that’s the beauty of the league: no wound is mortal. All teams can afford to play with the sense of abandon and adventure which has become conspicuously absent from the majority of All-Ireland championship play. Much lip service will be paid to the ‘tradition’ which Dublin and Kerry football style honours. But come the summer, both counties will do what they must. But this is April and they will just play. It might just be the game of the year.