In fairness after what David Clifford puts in and carries game in game out, anyone would be knackered after 50 minutes.
This will be the 8th Galway v Kerry, All Ireland Football Final. Current score is 4-3 in favour of The Kingdom.
It’s the second most played All Ireland Football Final after 14 of Dublin v Kerry.
Only an All Ireland Football Final involving a combination of the three at the top of the roll of honour can really be classified as a proper and traditional All Ireland Football Final. There’s also been 6 Dublin v Galway finals, which is the 3rd most played final.
Kelly held him as well as I’ve seen anyone hold him in the Sigerson final although this is a slightly different ballgame. The mans a genius
different ball game, different time of the year, different conditions
tickets be handy enough got? no minor final
Nothing on general sale, so yeah
Take it easy there yerrah. Ive acknowledged clifford is a genius. Kelly is as well equipped to handle his as anyone is all I’m saying.
John Fogarty: Don’t expect a Kerry and Galway football final feast
Kerry and Galway, royals of the sport, purveyors of the beautiful game, their first All-Ireland final meeting in 22 years, people are going to be soft and wistful
TUE, 12 JUL, 2022 - 08:00
JOHN FOGARTY
Romance will fill the air in Galway and Kerry these next 12 days.
Royals of the sport, purveyors of the beautiful game, their first All-Ireland final meeting in 22 years, the first title for them in either eight or 21 years, people are going to be soft and wistful.
Copies of “A Year ‘Til Sunday” will be dusted off. If not, the hits for the recording of it on YouTube will rocket. Incidentally, its creator, then Galway substitute goalkeeper and their current goalkeeping coach Pat Comer has been filming around the team again (he was also spotted doing the same at the Cork-Kerry game in Páirc Uí Rinn in May where coach Cian O’Neill was also in attendance – were Galway thinking that far down the line?).
Purcell, Stockwell, O’Connell, O’Dwyer… they will all be namechecked in the build-up as it is claimed Gaelic football has returned to a more innocent, affable version of itself. There will be rose-tinted revisionism too. Despite what you might remember or hear, the 2008 All-Ireland quarter-final between the teams was no classic, just a decent contest in atrocious conditions.
In Kerry, now that Dublin are out of the way they believe that Jack O’Connor is on his way to completing a fourth league-championship double. Sure, the only way he knows how to win an All-Ireland is by dominating the entire year.
In Galway, Pádraic Joyce has spoken of his county’s pedigree being “the third most successful team in football in the country” and even indulged in highlighting the similarities between this season and 1998. “It’s panning out that way. We beat Mayo away as well and we had Roscommon in the final. We beat Derry in an (All-Ireland) semi-final that time as well. I hope it stays going. It would be great.”
In his press conference at the weekend, O’Connor was warier to believe the hype but he has noted the significance of some of the victories he has overseen this year. After the win over Mayo in Tralee: “This is the kind of a game we were hoping we’d win, a game where our backs are to the wall, because Kerry haven’t been winning these kind of games,” he said before adding. “Mayo have a fantastic record down here. I think I was involved the last time we beat Mayo (in the league) down here in 2009, that is 13 years ago.”
Following the Division 1 final victory against Mayo: “I don’t know about national titles but someone threw a stat at me during the week that Kerry have only had one win in the last 10 visits to Croke Park. Is that true? Is that actually true? Tyrone in ‘19, is it? that’s not a good record, lads, so more than winning national titles, that’s something we want to improve on because Croke Park is a bad place to be losing matches.”
“I’m not bragging, I’m just giving you facts…” as O’Connor said in the Irish Examiner football podcast last August but he has been documented the advances Kerry have made in this third reign of his. The historical context he puts the results achieved this season lends itself to greater expectation.
For all the dreaming that is being done in both counties, what shouldn’t be anticipated on Sunday week is a gem of a game. Firstly, neither have been involved in one this season. Galway’s quarter-final with Armagh was unadulterated entertainment but short on quality. O’Connor asked the press corps if they too felt Sunday’s semi-final was a classic. Tense and exciting it was, game for the ages it wasn’t.
Secondly, Galway gave up a measly 1-6 on Saturday and are averaging a concession of just over 15 points per championship game. They are facing a Kerry team who are priding themselves more on their defensive work this season than anything else, who have given up a paltry two goals from open play in 15 games in 2022, whose average SFC match concession is 12 points.
The histories of the counties may scream shoot-out but the current iterations of them do not. Their coaches, former Kildare and Down managers O’Neill and Paddy Tally, will be doing everything in their power to avoid an open affair. O’Neill will be looking to do a tight number on his former team as he did with Cork in 2020, as he did with Kerry against Donegal six years earlier.
But in case you’re not convinced, let us remind you of the would-be Kerry manager publicly declaring getting goals can be a bad thing. “It didn’t do Kerry any favours that they scored all these goals all year,” said O’Connor of his players’ 2021 season after they were beaten by Tyrone. “I think they had something like 21. That gets into players’ heads, right. There were points for the taking the last day.”
Joyce on Saturday double distilled such an approach – “find a way”. Galway and Kerry – aristocrats by name, now artisans by nature.
Would you buy them up there on the day handy enough?
I dunno tbh. I think they’ll be hard got. The galway band wagon is a sight to behold. Support may be diluted a bit by having a pretty successful year across all codes though, and summer holidays.
Fortunate it’s not on next weekend in the heat.
I’d say you’d be very unlucky not to find one, but I’d not be too lackadaisical either.
Crazy buying them from a third party when they’re all digital tickets.
They could have sold it ten times over. Only buy from someone you know/trust. Or at least someone that you know where they live
i expect you ll have one before the day of the match aertel
Crazy buying them from a third party when they’re all digital tickets.
They could have sold it ten times over. Only buy from someone you know/trust. Or at least someone that you know where they live
Jez I didnt think of that, for the final though, will they be less digital though? as in distributed through clubs, the old hard copy format?
i expect you ll have one before the day of the match aertel
I’m only a neutral😅 A few of us were thinking of meeting up in a pub near Croker to sample the atmosphere. Picking up tickets to actually attend would be an added bonus.
Kennedy’s or Fagans in Drumcomdra are hard bet
Distribution to club secretaries is through Ticketmaster.
If kerry win who lifts sam? Seanie or the offical captain Joe?
Distribution to club secretaries is through Ticketmaster.
a real danger so of the risk Aristotle points out, same ticket could be moved along several times?
Exactly, you would be handing over 90 quid for a sheet of paper.
Support may be diluted a bit by having a pretty successful year across all codes though, and summer holidays.
Thank fuck its on the Sunday before Raceweek and not after when we’ll all be skint