An era-defining final? – Jarlath

Jimmy Smyth and Tony Hanahoe in 1977. Will Sunday's game be a similarly memorable final?

KERRY versus Dublin in an All-Ireland final. The allure of this particular fixture will depend on your vintage. For the like of myself, it doesn’t get any sexier than this. The bogmen versus the city slickers. And don’t for one moment think if you live in a metropolis like Galbally or Bellaghy that you are any less of a culchie in the eyes of the Jackeens. For them, it’s the Dubs. The classy, sophisticates, cultured, refined, enlightened, metropolitan, bohemians versus Us. That’s the rest of the country. Illiterates, inbreds, yokels, bumpkins, rednecks.
Although they think the GAA is a bogball abomination, they still get great pleasure from being the best at it and beating the rest of us as often as possible. The past few decades have been a seething sulk for them as they contemplate the reality that they have been chokers, soft-centred, stylish without substance and a whole big bag full to the neck of hype with very little inside.
But this might all be about to change because this team led by Pat Gilroy is made of steel. If you are looking an indepth analysis on the game, go elsewhere. It’ll probably be a solid rough and tumble encounter with a few nice scores, lots of nerves and in all probabllity a Kerry victory and that’s the sum total of my analysis.

This column was published in the September 15 issue of Gaelic Life