JOE BROLLY: Indeed their Messiah

JACK O’Connor said before the final: “Yerra, we were only aiming to avoid relegation, so we are all a bit surprised to be in a league final. I suppose we got the bit of luck here and there along the way and yerra, we are in Croke Park again and no harm.”

He went on to say: “Sure I mean if you look at where the likes of David Clifford was born and reared, ’tis hard to believe we have come so far. David was after being born in a manger in Fossa and sure the family hadn’t even the money to buy him a pair of boots when he was small. It was only by the luck of God that Pat Spillane heard about it and sent him some of his old boots.

“They were five sizes too big but at least they covered his feet. And you look at Dublin and all the millions they have and some of our lads still coming to training on a donkey and cart and the parish priest in Killarney driving around the county in his Ford Austin picking lads up and yerra ’tis hard to fathom we have reached another final. Yerra, if the county board hadn’t set up a bar at the manger where David was born I don’t know how we would be able to keep the thing going at all. And sure with the pints only €12 at the height of the summer (and €14 for the Yanks), it’s a miracle they have been able to keep us in the few pound.”

Jim Gavin told me once that in the seven years he was managing Dublin, their aim was to win all 21 trophies – seven leagues, seven Leinsters, seven All-Irelands. “We went hard for every one of them,” he said. “Why?” I asked him. He explained that their aim was to perform for 70-plus minutes in every game, regardless of the opposition. It was, he said, the only insurance policy against loss of focus. Essentially, the team played against itself.

Which chimed with something Colm Cooper told me some years ago. I asked him: “What was it like playing against them?” “It was as if you weren’t there,” he said.

Of those 21 trophies they competed for, the Dubs won 18: Seven Leinsters, six All-Irelands, five National leagues. Jim still agonises over the three that got away.

Ulster’s Team of the League

For a man who yerra doesn’t put much stock in league finals, Kerry were not just very lucky to avoid relegation for the second year in a row. Indeed, yerra, for the second year in a row, if you can believe it at all at all, they made the league final and no one was more amazed than Jack. Maybe somebody should remind him they were the reigning league champions, though that might send him over the edge altogether.

After Jim McGuinness had stepped down from Donegal after his first stint, we are at the opening of a pitch in Dublin. Over a pint I asked him when he had started planning his immortal ambush of Dublin in the 2014 semi-final. He said: “Well you know, we had a good idea we would be meeting them in Croke Park come the autumn, so I suppose we began rehearsing for them from the first training session of the year.”

I was in Ballyshannon for the All-Ireland Intermediate Football Championship semi final a few months ago. So, when a Donegal friend who is close to the team told me, “the boys are working flat out on beating Kerry,” I believed it. After Sunday, who doesn’t?

Jim is one of the few managers who has real insight. He sees what the opposition is doing. He notes their strengths and their weak spots. Critically, he knows how to coach his players to take advantage. Kerry’s kick-out, which destroyed them in the All-Ireland, was negated. Donegal’s kick-out was transformed. Clifford was marked more sensibly (in fairness, Jimmy couldn’t have done any worse than his dumb plan for him last July) and all over the field Kerry were overwhelmed in much the same way Dublin were in that 2014 semi-final.

Confidence

It was, of course, only the league, but there are a few important things to note. One, this was a massive confidence boost to the Donegal players: their confidence in themselves and more importantly, their confidence in Jim to get it right. Having had that confidence knocked last July, it is now fully restored. Jim is indeed their Messiah.

Secondly, it provides a massive incentive for Kerry, who have not been humiliated like this since the early ‘90s. They will also be rightly enraged and disgusted by what Michael Murphy did. It was a terrible act and he deserves a very lengthy ban. It is a real shame that he is capable of this and, in truth, it is all that this league final will be remembered for outside of Donegal.

I will finish with a man who did not have a nasty bone in his body.

Michael Lyster would have loved to have been anchoring this game.

Whether it was driving a works rally car at inhuman speed through country roads crashing at regular intervals (when Vincent Hogan said in his eulogy on Thursday that he resigned as co-driver because it was just too dangerous, it provoked great laughter), effortlessly holding the reins on live TV with an audience of a few million, or just having a jar with a crowd of supporters in the pub, none of it was any bother to him.

His trick was that he didn’t take the TV seriously, just as he didn’t take life seriously.

As we were leaving the funeral service, his favourite song was booming out – Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” They should have played it over the tannoy in Croke Park on Sunday. The big man would have chuckled at that.