EVEN though he hails from the wrong side of the county bounds, the sports editor declined to write an article on the upcoming All-Ireland football final, not wanting to antagonise all his West Cork friends.
‘It would look better coming from a neutral West Cork man,’ said he, as he handed over the task with a smile on his face.
Seeing as he is doing his level best to push Cork football onto another level through the pages of The Southern Star, we agreed to bail him out on this one.
It won’t put us up nor down whoever wins on Sunday but we’re looking forward to the first final under the new rules and a possible great clash of styles between northern football and southern football.
On the one hand you have the individual geniuses who wear the green and gold of Kerry, not bad as a team either, and on the other, the green and gold of the machine-like Donegal side, laced with a few geniuses of their own.
Starting the year, I rated Paudie Clifford ahead of his brother David in importance to Kerry, the play-maker, the engine of the side, making Kerry tick. But needs must and in recent games they have managed superbly with a half-fit Paudie as more of their players stood up to be counted. None more than Joe O’Connor. What a player, what a footballer and what a competitor, completely giving the lie to the belief that Kerry are a one-man team.
In the semi-final, Donegal took off Murphy, to rest him for the final or so we thought, but in fact it was to get a forward onto the pitch who would be an automatic starter in any other team in Ireland, Patrick McBrearty, captain of the team. That’s the kind of quality Donegal can leave on the bench.
This isn’t a final just about David Clifford, but at present the Fossa man is unmarkable. If ever the new rules suited a player, it is Clifford, but then, the same applies to Michael Murphy and all the other class forwards in the country. The big question is: can Donegal come up with a player to mark Clifford for the full hour or will Jim McGuinness again use his coaching genius to come up with a plan that nobody has tried before to limit the Kerry star?
The danger in over-emphasising the attention on Clifford is that it will release the other Kerry forwards to create havoc. Seán O’Shea is a match-winner, while the Geaney brothers, Conor and Dylan, along with Mícheál Burns and Graham O’Sullivan may not shoot the lights out but their movement on and off the ball is mesmerising.
Good and all as the forwards are, it was the much-maligned Kerry defence that came in for most praise against Tyrone. Shane Ryan is a marvellous shot-stopper, while Paul Murphy, Jason Foley and Dylan Casey are rock-solid in front of him. The half-back trio were outstanding in the semi-final, especially powering forward from defence into attack, which is the new Gaelic football. Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Mike Breen and Gavin White form a line which is the real anchor of the team at the moment and it will be fascinating to see how they manage Donegal’s fast-breaks from defence to attack.
So, besides Murphy and McBrearty, what do Donegal have to offer against this potentially lethal Kerry side? Goalkeeper Shaun Patton is one of their main weapons with his marvellous kicks-outs. The vaunted Kerry half backs will have to be on their toes when Patton kicks over the top of midfield as he is wont to do.
In Brendan McCole, Donegal have the prince of man-markers and we will surely see a duel for the ages between him and David Clifford. If he succeeds against Clifford, Kerry will struggle. In Finbarr Roarty, Peadar Mogan, Ryan McHugh, Eoghan Bán Gallagher and Caolan McColgan, Donegal not only have defenders who play perfectly to a set plan but who love venturing forward in fast breakaways that are the source of many of their scores.
Apart from Murphy and McBrearty, Conor O’Donnell, Oisín Gallen, Ciarán Moore and Michael Langan are all capable of a handful of scores over the 70 minutes. Langan is playing super football at midfield, well assisted by Hugh McFadden and their duel with Seán O’Brien, Mark O’Shea and Joe O’Connor could decide this final.
Somehow, this final feels like a contest between the old values of Gaelic football, where the best players with the best skills usually win out, against the modern trend of having a team playing to a system that is geared to get the very best from the players as a team.
It won’t put us up or down as regards who wins, but we will be keeping a close eye on the standard of football being played with a view to estimating just how much of a gap exists between the top two teams and our own Cork team.
