Mickey Ned: Backs hold key to final

THE team with the best defensive system in place will win the All-Ireland senior football final, according to former All-Ireland winning Kerry captain Mickey Ned O’Sullivan.

The new Kerry minor boss, who famously is the only All-Ireland winning captain not to receive the cup after he was concussed early in Kerry’s 1975 All-Ireland win over Dublin, believes this year’s final will be decided by tactics.

While pointing out Kerry have the experience and will rightly start as favourites, O’Sullivan is adamant about where the All-Ireland final will be won and lost.

“They are both two attacking teams that will go out and try to score but the team that will win is the team which has the best defensive system in place, without actually becoming too defensive,” he said.

“Dublin will focus on Colm Cooper, Kieran Donaghy, Darran O’Sullivan and Declan O’Sullivan, and they will have to put a system in place that lessens the impact that these players can make. Likewise Kerry will be looking at the two Brogans and Diarmuid Connolly, mainly.

“The team that puts the best defensive system in place to counteract the effectiveness of the other’s forwards will win.”

And O’Sullivan believes Dublin have it all to do against a quality Kerry forward division. “Dublin have a bigger challenge in place because you might hold Gooch and you might hold Declan O’Sullivan but there are always three or four more prongs to the Kerry attack. If one player is having a quiet day, then others step up,” he said.

“Dublin, on the other hand, are more reliant on the Brogans and Connolly. They are their biggest threat and where Dublin’s scores will come from.

“Kerry have more match-winners but if Dublin come up with a system, and without doing a Donegal on it, to counteract Kerry’s attacking threat while keeping their shape and balance, then they have a chance.”