Christy O'Connor: Can Dublin keep Kerry down...or can Kerry finally put an end to the torture?

TITANIC BATTLE: Dublin’s Jonny Cooper gets to grips with Kerry’s David Clifford in the 2019 final. Rivals Dublin and Kerry are set for another huge encounter at Croke Park on Sunday as they bid to book a place in this year’s All-Ireland Final.

When Kerry and Dublin met in a league game in Tralee in February 2019, there was a huge row at the final whistle, but the first spark of the blaze was ignited at half-time. One of the Kerry players somehow ended up in the Dublin dressing room and, as he was coming out, some of the Dublin players rattled him against the door.

The bonfire which was lit in the corridor combusted 50 minutes later when heated words were exchanged between two players. All hell broke loose but as the row was breaking up and everyone began dispersing, one of the Dublin players roared: “See youse in September.” 

When the scuffle was at its most heated, as players were rolling around on the ground and digs were being thrown, Jim Gavin was making his way across the field. The row was straight in front of him but Gavin barely broke stride, just veering slightly to the right, almost clipping the swinging arms as he headed for the dressing room, never lifting his gaze on his way.

Gavin never got distracted with side issues. Six months on from that Kerry defeat in Tralee, Gavin and Dublin fully expected to be in Croke Park for an All-Ireland final. Kerry hoped they would be too but Kerry were also hopeful that their next meeting against Dublin would be in that setting. Kerry wanted to keep their powder dry. One shot. One chance to take out Dublin and secure their own immortality.

Kerry never fear anyone, but that seminal Croke Park meeting three years ago was still largely a mind-game against the machine for a young Kerry side. The previous December, Mickey Whelan, the former Dublin manager and coach said that Dublin’s dominance over Kerry during that decade had given them a level of confidence that allowed Dublin to colonise Kerry’s thoughts.

"We (in 2011) were the second (Dublin) team to beat Kerry in an All-Ireland championship in 84 years,” said Whelan. “Do you understand that? Two wins in 84 years. And that was in everybody's heads, particularly in Kerry's heads. They're coming up saying, 'These guys never beat us'. But the roles have changed now. I think we're a bit in their heads."

Were they? Dublin’s greater experience was a huge factor but Kerry had that drawn 2019 All-Ireland final in the palm of their hands and Dublin still snatched it from their grasp. When Dublin needed to find a way, they did, despite being a man down for the whole second half. In the last ten minutes, including injury time, Dublin had six shots to Kerry’s none. Dublin turned Kerry over on four occasions in that time.

Kerry had their chance. Two weeks later, Dublin beat them by six points to complete their five-in-a-row with the county’s best display in an All-Ireland final in a decade of decades, sealing their immortality and pushing the Dubs into a place which had previously been the place of Kerry mythology. Dublin had finally achieved what Kerry’s greatest team couldn’t.

Dublin had the best players and the best team but it was all the harder again to stomach when Kerry wondered if the point Whelan had raised was true. 

Were Kerry spooked by Dublin?

“You’d have to say that Dublin did get into Kerry’s heads,” says former Kerry player Seán O’Sullivan. “Dublin were well ahead of us and, say what you like, we don’t like that down here.

“Dublin had that mentality over us. They were no longer going to go into their shells when they played us. I wouldn’t say it kept us awake at night. But Dublin were always in our heads.” 

Was it that black and white either? Dublin had to be in Kerry’s heads because they put so much focus and effort into trying to take them down.

“The meaning you’d take from someone being in your head is that it’s a negative thing, that it’s almost limiting your ability to perform,” says Éamonn Fitzmaurice, who managed Kerry in three huge championship matches against Dublin between 2013-’16. “I wouldn’t agree with that.

“Dublin were in our heads in terms of the determination to get to their level. But in terms of us being cowed by them or anything like that, definitely not. Every time we went up against them in championship, we went out to win. And we felt we could win. There was never a game we went into where we felt it was damage limitation. They were definitely not in our heads from a negative sense.” 

Under Fitzmaurice, Kerry and Dublin played out two of the greatest games of the modern era in the 2013 and 2016 All-Ireland semi-finals. Kerry underperformed in the 2015 All-Ireland final but they still only lost by one score.

Kerry beat Dublin in the 2017 league final but Fitzmaurice never got another crack at Dublin during his final two years in charge. All the while, Dublin just drove on at a relentless rate and pace.

When they beat Kerry again in the 2019 All-Ireland final replay, it was Dublin’s fifth successive championship win against their great rivals. After only losing to Dublin twice in championship in 84 years, it was only natural for the Kerry public to start wondering if they had a psychological hang-up with the Dubs.

When the sides next met after the 2019 final, in the league in January 2020, Seán O’Shea kicked Kerry ahead by three points with ten minutes remaining in Croke Park. Dublin weren’t long back from holidays but that was almost irrelevant to Kerry at that time; closing out a big game against their great rivals was something Kerry needed to do for themselves.

Kerry looked to have control. They had an extra man – again - but they needed David Clifford to nail a tricky free with the last kick to secure a draw.

The subsequent scuffle at the final whistle again showcased the raw tension between those sides. That was evident in the tone of the evening as Dublin tried to keep their boot on Kerry’s neck and Kerry continued to try and desperately resist the act of aggression, both on their manhood, and on Kerry’s history.

The ending was faithful to how edgy the relationship had become between those two groups. Two more league meetings is all they’ve shared in the meantime but now that they’re squaring up again on Sunday, the two biggest questions of all are back on the table. 

Can Dublin keep Kerry down? Can Kerry finally put an end to this Dublin torture?

“The bottom line here is these Kerry players have been yearning to get a cut at the Dubs from as far back as three years ago,” said Jack O’Connor after the win against Mayo. “They lost an All-Ireland out there that they would feel they could have won.” 

Kerry’s want has never been greater but the dynamic of the relationship is still different now too. Maybe it’s because they are no longer All-Ireland champions but Kerry don’t seem as obsessed with Dublin as they used to be.

There were stages during Dublin’s relentless crusade that Kerry seemed so caught up with taking them down that it was perceived – from the outside anyway – to have become their main focus.

“Fitzmaurice has completely focused on Dublin,” said Jack O’Shea before the 2017 championship. “Fitzmaurice is a good bit down the road in terms of facing Dublin. But there are more difficult and awkward games for Kerry to overcome first. Mayo would be a big challenge. The football would be more physical, less open.” 

Kerry never got a chance to take on Dublin that summer because Mayo took them out in an All-Ireland semi-final replay. Was O’Shea right? Had Fitzmaurice and Kerry become too obsessed with Dublin?

“I think obsession is the wrong word,” says Fitzmaurice now. “The ultimate aim was to win the All-Ireland and to win the All-Ireland, you were going to have to beat Dublin on the way.

“We measured ourselves off them. We were always trying to get to their level. As some of their top players have moved on, they’re not as formidable now as they were back then. But to beat them at that time, you had to be perfect.” 

Everything had to start with Dublin. To try and beat them, Fitzmaurice and his management had to restructure the team, to inject more pace and athleticism. Dublin underperformed in the 2017 league final but Kerry finally looked to be getting closer to cracking the code.

“There was always that real determination to get to Dublin’s level,” says Fitzmaurice. “Whatever about us having been inside in their heads in the past, or them being in our heads, we felt if we could get to their level across the board that we’d compete well with them in Croke Park, which we always did. We came up short in the championship but, every time they beat us, I think we learned a bit more about ourselves.” 

The 2017 league final win was a huge boost but, psychologically, Dublin still always seemed to have the whip hand. The next time Kerry met Dublin in Croke Park, Dublin walloped them in the 2018 league by 12 points.

Dublin always had their foot pressed to the accelerator under Gavin but the nature of the performance carried undertones of a payback from the league final defeat. It was a young Kerry side. They lost Paul Geaney and Seán O’Shea to injury at half-time, but Dublin rolled over Kerry when they got a run on them in the second half.

“They punished our mistakes,” Fitzmaurice said after that game. “But for whatever reason then, we seemed to go into our shell a bit, which was disappointing.” 

It was but it still didn’t bother Fitzmaurice at the time when he coldly looked back at the reasons for Kerry’s struggles. “We didn’t compete well enough to stay in the game, even though we were short bodies,” says Fitzmaurice now. 

“But I wasn’t worried about it because there were mitigating factors. We were building and I felt we’d be ok by the time the championship came around.” 

Kerry never made it out of their Super 8s group that summer. It was another year of not getting to meet Dublin, which further inflated the perception of there being a pressure on Kerry against Dublin that they had historically never faced, or felt before. That was all the more distressing again for the players and supporters because a date with Dublin used to have the complete opposite effect.

Back in 2009, when Kerry were in crisis and seemingly on the ropes, their season completely turned when they saw Dublin in the other corner. After getting hammered by Cork in a Munster semi-final replay before escaping with their lives against Sligo in Tralee, the wheels looked to be completely heading off the tracks when Colm Cooper and Tomás O Sé were dropped for the subsequent qualifier against Antrim for drinking.

Kerry beat Antrim after a late surge but they looked to be going nowhere. On the way home from that game in Tullamore, the mood was dark and sombre. And then, in an instant, the light was turned on.

“We were on the train, fellas were down and you could see that the management were pissed off with us,” says O’Sullivan. "Next thing, the draw came through on the radio that we had got Dublin in Croke Park in the quarter-final.

"It's amazing. The carriage just turned giddy with excitement. Fellas started playing card games. They immediately started talking about training the following week. Everything was forgotten about. The fellas who went offside after the Sligo game were back again and driving it."

Cooper graphically described that moment in his book, and how Kerry knew it had the potential to completely change their season. It did. Kerry wiped out the Dubs and went on to win the All-Ireland.

“We didn’t fear Dublin because they’d never beaten this Kerry team,” wrote Cooper. “For us, a side barely able to put one foot in front of the other, they were perfect for our mood at the time. Maybe they gave us a little inner viciousness back.” 

That 2009 game was the first time since the 1984 All-Ireland final that Dublin went into a championship game with Kerry as favourites, but that was a rating based more on hype than reality. 

Yet that match was also a serious turning point for Dublin and Pat Gilroy, who completely altered the culture, and direction, Dublin football would take over the following decade.

Dublin completely changed the mindset and the dynamic of their relationship with Kerry through their dominance. Winning six-in-a-row was all the more powerful again because five had always been deemed the magic number. As Dublin’s ascent went on at a relentless pace up the mountain, Kerry looked further away than ever after tumbling and collapsing in a heap at the bottom when losing to Cork in 2020.

Dublin were expected to keep climbing but they lost their footing last year and Kerry have spent this season trying to make up lost ground. When the sides met in Tralee in February, Kerry beat the Dubs by seven points. It was Kerry’s biggest-ever win on home soil against Dublin, surpassing the previous record of six points achieved in 1970.

On Sunday, the madness starts all over again. Dublin are looking for a sixth successive championship win against their southern rivals. Kerry just desperately want the misery to end.

“When Jack came out with his comments after the Mayo game, some people down here were saying, ‘Jesus, Jack, you should have been toning it down rather than dialling it up,’” says O’Sullivan. “But I loved it. He’s dead right.

“These guys have been yearning for a cut off Dublin. Who else do they want a cut off? This is a different Dublin team but it’s a different Kerry side too. The mentality is different as well. Kerry really want Dublin now.” 

As Kerry go back up the mountain again and into the thinner air to try and pass out Dublin, they do so with more strength in their bodies and more oxygen in their lungs.

And with clearer minds.