Pat Spillane: Kerry are the only team that can beat Dublin

Kingdom legend believes native county are physically ready for the champions

RTÉ analyst Pat Spillane: 'Kerry really surprised me last year.' Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach

Pat Spillane sees Kerry as the only team capable of removing Dublin from their throne and believes they are now better conditioned to match the All-Ireland champions.

The eight-time All-Ireland winner was pleasantly surprised by how strong his native county were last year when they brought Dublin to an All-Ireland final replays and expects them to push on now.

“There is only one serious challenger to Dublin’s crown are going to be Kerry,” Spillane declares. “Stats don’t lie; Kerry got to two national finals last year.

“Kerry really surprised me last year. I genuinely believed in Peter Keane’s first year, they would be in transition, there would be a bit of rebuilding and a lot of things surprised me. They got to a league final, they got to an All-Ireland final and with 12 minutes to go before the referee blew the whistle, when Killian Spillane kicked that point Kerry were one point ahead and should have closed out the game so they were very close to depriving Dublin of five-in-a-row.

“There were a lot of things that impressed me about Kerry. There was more football in David Moran. I thought his best years were behind him but he was magnificent last year and won a deserved All-Star.

“Tom O’Sullivan, an attacking half back, you would not have thought that they would have converted him into a tight man-marking corner back but they did and then, of course, the big question up front David Clifford, would he suffer from second season syndrome, would his opponents get the better of him? He got better so there was a lot of positives.

“There were negatives too. They got to three finals, a league final and two All-Irelands and did not win any of them. 

Defensively, they still need work but I will tell you this, Kerry are a serious threat, a really serious threat.

“I am not bigging them up, I am basing it on several things. A lot of these lads were young last year and I think they have matured, I think they have come on. I think they will learn. Kerry people do not shrug off defeats as ‘we were unlucky on the day’. The Kerry lads and management will learn from their failings on the day.”

Spillane claims some of the players he’s seen are bigger this year too.

“The one thing I notice about them and I know lots of the lads around here, there is four from Templenoe, three from Kenmare on the panel, physically these lads have developed and they can match Dublin in that department and they couldn’t last year.

“There is certainly a lot of hope, if they can get a defensive system, get an even midfield and they have a lot of firepower up front. Kerry have potentially the best forward line in this year’s championship.”

Spillane is adamant nothing will tarnish this year’s Championship, not key players missing because of Covid or even teams. 

“On the All-Ireland medal, and I have a few of them, there’s nothing to state ‘lucky winner’, there’s nothing to state ‘the losers were very unlucky’, there’s nothing to state ‘ah, the losers were understrength on the day’. An All-Ireland medal is an All-Ireland medal. 

“I don’t know whether there’s any people still alive from the 1941 Cork senior hurling team but in the 1941 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, foot and mouth was rampant in this country and, on the insistence of the Department of Agriculture, both Tipperary and Kilkenny had to withdraw.

“Cork won the 1941 All-Ireland Hurling Championship beating Dublin. I can tell you this, there isn’t a person in Cork with his 1941 All-Ireland SHC medal that’s saying, ‘Ah well, this is not a credible medal, we were lucky to win it’. A 1941 All-Ireland medal was won by Cork and it’s credible.”

The Templenoe man accepts the intense 50-day Championship schedule will benefit the major football counties.

“It will give a big advantage because it’s played in such a concise, short period of time and because you’re playing so many matches in a short period, there’s going to be a lot of injuries so the strong counties with the big panels will certainly have an advantage.”

- Pat Spillane was speaking at the launch of RTÉ's 2020 Championship coverage, which includes 20 live games on RTÉ One, RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, 12 streamed on GAAGO and four on the RTÉ News channel.