Shane Stapleton looks ahead to this weekend's GAA action as Armagh face Kerry on Saturday before Donegal take on Galway on Sunday.
Kerry come into the All-Ireland stages as the Darth Vader of the piece.
With Dublin gone, they are that foreboding presence bringing darkness over the remaining counties, all of whom carry a story of hope and the ending of famines.
They have won and won some more throughout their history, and there’s always a feeling that Kerry will find a way against teams not quite so seasoned on the big stage.
Armagh won their sole All-Ireland in 2002, and have not been back at a semi-final since 2005, with former player Enda McNulty this week saying he would “go to the grave” wondering why that team didn’t win more.
Kieran McGeeney was their inspirational captain during that era and, as we know, he hasn’t delivered any silverware as a manager. Victory over the Kingdom would send him to just his fourth ever championship final in 16 years as a senior inter-county boss.
The previous three — for Kildare in Leinster, and twice with the Orchard County in Ulster — all ended in tears but the margins were fine on each occasion. Penalties have been their nemesis in recent seasons, and yet they are back for more.
There’s the obvious plotlines to this game: former Kingdom ‘Star’ Kieran Donaghy is part of the Armagh coaching ticket, while McGeeney’s wife Maura — the team physio — hails from the same county.
On the flipside, S&C guru Jason McGahan and stats-man Colin Trainor are Belfast natives and, like Donaghy, will have an inside track on their opponents.
As Armagh coach Ciaran McKeever this week put it: “[Donaghy] knows the Kerry players inside out. Some of them were coming in at the tail end of his career. He was playing club football up until last year, so he’s come across these boys in club football.”
When the 2006 Footballer of the Year looks across to the Kerry bench, he will see a fellow Tralee man in Mike Quirke — with the duo having many moons ago played basketball together for the locals Tigers where they twice won the National League. The ties that bind truly are pulling in different directions this weekend.
The same can be said for former Sigerson Cup teammates, Jim McGuinness and Padraic Joyce. In the aforementioned town of Tralee, the current Donegal and Galway managers went to college together at the I.T. and claimed the highest college football honours in 1998.
Four years ago, at the height of Covid, McGuinness was invited into the Tribal County to do a training session under Joyce, which former captain Gary O’Donnell called “very demanding”.
The pair even shared texts after the draw pitted their counties together for this semi-final. While the friendship endures 26 years on from their shared glory in the Sigerson Cup, that will all be parked as each looks to bring joy to their counties.
The Tribe last lifted the Sam Maguire Cup in 2001 — when Joyce popped over ten of 17 points — but needed another 16 years before their next win of any variety at Croke Park: a Division 2 league decider against Kildare in 2017.
Shane Walsh, Damien Comer, Paul Conroy and Sean Kelly are four of the most impactful footballers in the country, and there’s a sense that Galway could end their famine if only this quartet could stay 100% healthy.
The Tribe have laboured their way through this championship season in spite of their woes, claiming the Connacht title, and remaining unbeaten all the way. That is sure to have gilded the team with a hard edge, with the glorious win over Dublin injecting them with positivity ahead of this game. They will believe that this is their time.
Donegal will present a massive challenge, but for McGuinness to turn his side from last year’s bad joke into All-Ireland winners a season later would be almost unfathomable.
If any man can pull it off, it is the Glenties icon. Our betting experts are landing slightly on the Galway side for this game, but it is so tough to call that a draw might well be the smart approach.
We’ve seen with the Euros how high stakes can lead to cautious approaches, and we can expect the scoring to be tit-for-tat here too — with 7/1 for the game to be level at the end of normal time.
When reflecting on the Kerry forward line for their 0-15 to 0-10 win over a misfiring Derry in the quarter-finals, the bottom line is that the Munster men are not an overly-imposing side in a physical sense.
Armagh will play on the edge, look to rough up their rivals (while not falling foul of the referee), and of course that means David Clifford must steel himself for some close attention.
The Kingdom are also able to mix it physically, and know well the dark arts, but this is an area where McGeeney will sense an advantage.
When everything is on the line, nothing is out of the question. A red card — for either team — is 7/4 and this could easily turn into a tetchy affair.
At 10/1, Sean O’Shea is decent value for first goal, and we know he has a tendency to come up trumps in the big moments.
Whether it is enough to help his side back to the final in the hope of reclaiming a title they last won in 2022 is a tough call, but there’s no doubting that many neutrals will be hoping for fresh faces in the final.
Donegal are waiting since 2012 for the Sam Maguire, Armagh must go back to 2002, while Galway were a year earlier still in 2001.
This could well be the best weekend of the football year.
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