All-Ireland Club SFC final: Glen v Kilmacud Croke’s (tomorrow, 3.30pm, Croke Park, live on TG4)
DO you really have to lose one to win one?
Kilcoo’s lease on the Andy Merrigan Cup expires tomorrow, albeit it was handed back to Croke Park almost three months ago now. They had to endure the pain of defeat by Corofin in 2020. They didn’t win Down in The Lost Year. Did it steel them for Kilmacud? It’s bound to have.
The forgotten part of that success is that the final was Kilcoo’s worst performance of the whole year.
You don’t always have to be brilliant to win finals. You just have to stay close enough that when the gap opens, you’re there to force your way through it.
Tonight will be a nervy night in Dublin for Glen. Unlike the semi-final, when they did a walk around the stadium on the Saturday, they’ll just go to the hotel, have their dinner, probably a meeting and bed, to sleep or not to sleep.
Some of them will take to the All-Ireland final and some of them will go into their shell. No different from Kilmacud, no matter how many times they’ve been down the Jones’ Road.
The fact this will be their seventh game in Croke Park of the last nine in provincial and All-Ireland series’ in itself isn’t right, but it’s not an argument for tomorrow.
Does the experience the back-to-back Leinster champions have gathered up along the way count? You’d have to think it does. Last year’s final will drive them, no matter how they might deny it. Robbie Brennan has had an easy cause to cling to for twelve whole months.
But causes don’t carry anyone. Kilmacud are back in an All-Ireland final because they deserve to be. Any team that can do that without the best club footballer of the last five years, Paul Mannion, in the thick of either season deserves huge credit.
They are not infallible, however. Leinster’s bleakness can paint a false picture. Portarlington scored 0-4 against them. The Downs got 0-8 but even that was a lie owed only to a late flurry.
Kilmacud have become good at defending from the front but as Kerin’s O’Rahillys showed in the semi-final, if you can get on top of them at midfield, their defence looks infinitely shakier.
Gavin O’Brien, Barry John Keane and Tommy Walsh all had opportunities to feast off David Moran’s collection and delivery business. Kilmacud, good and all as Craig Dias has been, were wiped out in the air and ended up really hanging on.
Glen would have taken great heart from that had their own semi-final not been an exact replica. They barely ever got to grips with Moycullen’s multitude of aerial colossuses. The Derry and Ulster champions fell over the line too, having looked comfortable for most of the first three-quarters.
To both win despite haemorrhaging possession marks out that there really isn’t much to separate these sides. Ryan Dougan and Michael Warnock may not have the profile of Rory O’Carroll and Theo Clancy but they have the form to feel they’re equals.
Ethan Doherty grows with every game. Emmett Bradley is making them tick every bit as much as Conor Glass is.
But then even in Mannion’s absence and with Shane Walsh kept quiet, Kilmacud had Hugh Kenny to step up and carry their attack the last day with a brilliant performance.
Shane Cunningham has 1-8 in their last four games, though Dara Mullin hasn’t caught fire at all this year and likewise Cian O’Connor, back in the team since the Leinster semi-final win over Portarlington.
Walsh has taken the hype around his transfer and harnessed it. Six months after one of the great All-Ireland final displays for Galway, if he brings it tomorrow there will be little or nothing anyone can do about him. That’s just the reality of what he offers.
Glen have Danny Tallon in the form of his life. Yet you feel that if they’re to win this, it hinges on Alex Doherty. All summer he’s brought flashes but not yet 60 minutes. He was too quiet against Moycullen. On his day, Glen could pepper him with the ball and he’d light up north Dublin all on his own. If tomorrow is that day, then they’ll win this thing.
Kilmacud’s use of their bench is interesting. Whether things are going well or they’re going badly, they’ll run subs. In their last four games, they’ve used 18 subs. If anything, it seemed to disrupt their flow a bit against Kerin’s O’Rahillys. It might work for them tomorrow and it might not.
They are human. Driven by last year, but everyone’s driven by something. For Glen that something is that they might never get the chance again.
A decade looking over the fence at Slaughtneil taught them to be better, but also taught them that these days are owed to nobody and that they don’t last very long.
There are more ifs about Glen, owing to their newbie status on this stage. They have the mixture of punchy runners and forwards they can turf the ball at. Frees will be easier come by off Derek O’Mahoney than they were off David Gough.
Glen will have enough joy in enough areas of the field to win the ultimate prize.
But the ultimate joy will probably reside with Kilmacud Croke’s tomorrow.
