Championship Preview: Will the 2015 Championship see us go back to the future?

It’s not just Marty McFly and Doc Brown who make a connection between 1985 and 2015. Like it was 30 years ago, Dublin and Kerry enter the football championship as the two favourites; Kerry as reigning kingpins and Dublin as the winners of the previous year. 

Similar to how it was back then, Munster and Ulster are on the same side of the draw, as are Leinster and Connacht on the other.

Monaghan and Mayo provided the All-Ireland semi-final opposition for Kerry and Dublin in ’85. The possibility of them being the last four again, this time around, is as favourable as almost every other permutation.

Not convinced their stars are aligned once more? How about the fact that so many who played in that year’s final now have offspring in the county set-ups. For Kerry, D Moran is again D Moran. S Walsh is now T Walsh. For Dublin, N McCaffrey is J McCaffrey. B Rock has been replaced by D Rock. Another B Brogan once more features for the Navy Blues, as does A Brogan for good measure. Mikey Sheehy, who claimed his seventh All-Ireland medal that year, playing at corner forward, is now a selector, as is Mick Deegan, who was an unused substitute when Dublin went down 2-12 to 2-8.

The parallels extend to the age profiles of the Kerry teams of both eras. On September 22, 1985, three of Kerry’s famous five were 30 or over: Ger Power (33), Mikey Sheehy (31), Paidi Ó Sé (30), Pat Spillane (29) and Denis ‘Ogie’ Moran (28). Going into that final, they had 30 Celtic Crosses.

On September 20, 2015, Paul Galvin, Aidan O’Mahony and Marc Ó Sé will all be 35, Kieran Donaghy and Colm Cooper both 32. Between them, they have 22. “We have gone back,” poor-mouthed Mick O’Dwyer prior to the ’85 final. “It is only natural it should happen after 10 years.” Eamonn Fitzmaurice would hardly dare field all five of the above, but he has just as much, if not more, experience at his disposal.

Want more symmetry? In ’84, Kerry won without Sheehy, who had picked up a calf problem in training, prior to beating Dublin. Last season, they had to do it in the absence of his modern-day equivalent, Colm Cooper, following his February cruciate and kneecap injury. Sheehy returned the following season, as Cooper has done so now.

Then, there is the sense of grievance that remains in Kerry after the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final and Kevin McManamon’s ‘fluke’ goal. Lest we forget their loss to Dublin in the 2011 final, which Kingdom supporters credited Joe McQuillan with, as much as the opposition. Why are they relevant? Well, if the age-old rivals were to meet again this September, Kerry would feel they were due a turn.

Certainly, the breaks went their way 30 years ago. The week after the ’85 final, Raymond Smith wrote a piece in the Sunday Independent, headlined ‘Why Dublin Were Robbed’.

In it, he outlined five refereeing decisions that went against Kevin Heffernan’s side, from the penalty awarded to Power to Tom Spillane touching the ball on the ground in a scoring position for Dublin, when Kerry were leading by a point. The piece caused a ruckus in Kerry, where Smith was seen to be denigrating the county’s All-Ireland triumph.

Would they be so appalled if the same was to be said of them again, having beaten Dublin in four months’ time?

Doubtful, but the evidence, notwithstanding the recent form of both counties and the brilliance of their managers, of them meeting once more at the ultimate stage, is not nearly as suspicious. Back to the future.