Another league crown for Jack and Kerry certainly won't hurt 

NO BAD THING: Kerry manager Jack O'Connor could win his ninth national league title this weekend when they take on Mayo in a surprise Allianz NFL Division 1 final pairing. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

“We know that teams who were top of the league the last two seasons didn’t go so well (in championship), so we’ll keep an eye on that.” 

In hindsight, Pádraic Joyce’s comments at the start of the month read like there was more than a fair chance Galway were going to pull the reins on a flying start to their Division 1 run.

Joyce was referring to 2024 league champions Derry who lost four of five championship games as they bowed out at the All-Ireland preliminary stage. Mayo, who beat Galway in the Division 1 final the year before, went on to be dumped out of the province at the first time of asking and their summer finished at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage.

Joyce would know reaching a final these past couple of years doesn’t augur well either. In 2023, Mayo repeated the league final win over their neighbours in the preliminary quarter-finals. Last season’s runners-up Dublin were sent out of the championship by Joyce’s men in a quarter-final.

But are the last couple of seasons outliers? 

2023 was the first time in 16 years that one of the Division 1 finalists didn’t at least make the All-Ireland semi-finals – in 2007, Donegal and Mayo both exited the championship in the qualifiers.

Fifteen of the 21 finals that have taken place since 2022 when the league started and finished in the calendar year for the first time have been either won (10) or lost (five) by the year’s would-be All-Ireland champions.

A lot is rightly made of Jack O’Connor following each of his league successes in the championship but Jim Gavin sure liked a double too. Four of his six All-Ireland titles with Dublin were preceded by Division 1 honours in the same year – 2013, ’15, ’16 and ’18. Kerry beat them in the 2017 final before Dublin lifted the Sam Maguire Cup a third consecutive time later that year.

The back-to-back is more associated with O’Connor, though. This final appearance was unexpected but now that Kerry are in it, the manager will be keen on collecting a ninth national title as manager knowing these pieces of silverware usually come in pairs.

O’Connor has never thrown up his nose at a Division 1 crown. Tony Brosnan’s appearance for Dr Crokes the day after coming on against Armagh earlier this month brought to mind how in 2006 a request was made by O’Connor’s would-be successor Pat O’Shea for Brosnan’s namesake and club-mate Eoin to line out in a club game the day before Kerry’s Division 1 final.

“Be good for his confidence," said O’Shea pointedly, ”O’Connor recalled O’Shea’s phone-call in his autobiography Keys To The Kingdom. “I asked him if this was some sort of a wind-up. It wasn’t. Well, wouldn’t it be great for Eoin’s ‘confidence’, I said, if he came on in the league final and cut loose.

“I was stunned. Asking a county player to play a Kerry league game in Cahirciveen against a weak side when the county team is playing for a national title the following day.”

Brosnan scored 1-1 coming off the bench in the win over Galway as he did in the All-Ireland final against Mayo five months later.

Chart O’Connor’s league championship wins and save for 2009 when Kerry won an NFL starting several fringe men, there is a strong likeness between the teams that started both finals. David Moran was the only change three years ago. 

You imagine if they are in Croke Park on July 27, Diarmuid O’Connor, Seán O’Shea and Tom O’Sullivan will be involved unlike this weekend.

O’Connor won’t need telling that he has won five out of six times against Mayo as Kerry senior manager in Croke Park, the 2004 and ’06 All-Ireland finals, the 2005 quarter-final, the ’11 semi-final and ’22 Division 1 final. The one defeat came in the 2012 league semi-final.

Upon his latest win over them three years ago, he deflected his double record. “I’m not into piseógs at all now,” insisted a man who reflected the fact no Kerry All-Ireland winning captain has worn the No.13 jersey by handing Paudie Clifford the No.10 top last season. 

“I’m just happy that we are setting out our stall to be competitive in every game. It wasn’t the end of the world if we didn’t win the league, but it certainly won’t hurt.” 

Whatever piseógs Joyce and Jim McGuinness have about avoiding the league final, they don’t compare to the one O’Connor possesses about not winning one.