4 key talking points as Kerry, Meath, Dublin and Galway chase All-Ireland final place
Kerry went into the 2025 season without ace forward Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh who announced her retirement after a glittering 17-year career.
They also had a new man at the helm following the departure of the highly respected duo Darragh Long and Declan Quill after five years in charge. Tralee native Mark Bourke became the successor, but despite those big changes, Kerry remain on course to defend their All-Ireland title.
After ending a 31-year wait for the Brendan Martin Cup last year, the Kingdom have added Division 1 and Munster honurs in 2025. They avenged their 2024 Division 1 final defeat to Armagh with a 4-14 to 0-11 victory over the same opposition in April.
Danielle O'Leary led the way with 1-5 from play while Jadyn Lucey and All-Ireland-winning captain Niamh Carmody combined for 3-3 in a convincing display. They continued their winning trend throughout the Munster province, taking out Cork and Waterford to book their place in the final. They closed out the group stage of the competition with a 1-6 to 1-6 draw against Tipperary.
Kerry head coach Mike Tim O'Sullivan told Radio Kerry after that game that Kerry had given championship time to 29 players in the round-robin phase.
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Waterford, who lost out to Kerry by just one previously, provided the opposition in the final. And again, it was a tight encounter as goals from O'Leary and Mary O'Connell powered Kerry to victory. They went two wins from two in the All-Ireland group phase against Mayo (0-13 to 1-4) and Cork (2-9 to 5-7) and progressed to the semi-finals with a 10-point victory against a Kildare side who had dumped Ulster champions Armagh out of the All-Ireland race.
Still unbeaten after seven championship outings, Kerry head for O'Connor Park in good health.
Sinéad Goldrick after scoring a goal for Dublin in the 2019 All-Ireland final. Bryan Keane / INPHO Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO
2. Dublin and Galway Meet Again
It's just over 12 months since Galway got the better of Dublin after an extra-time arm wrestle. Aoife O'Rourke was the match-winner with a well-taken goal in Parnell Park, while Hannah Tyrrell was unable to convert a late equalising free from a tight angle. That result paved the way for Galway to march on to their first All-Ireland final appearance since 2019, overcoming Cork at the penultimate stage.
That 2019 final was also against Dublin who were back-to-back All-Ireland champions at the time. Conditions were horrible that day, with the torrential rain limiting the teams to a bizarre half-time scoreline of Dublin 1-0 Galway 0-1. By full-time, Dublin had completed their three-in-a-row as Hannah O'Neill added their second goal with a palmed effort to help steer Dublin to a five-point win.
The LGFA set a new All-Ireland final attendance record that day, with 56,114 people coming to Croke Park in spite of the bad weather.
Some familiar faces from both sides are still involved from the class of 2019. Galway's twin sisters Nicola and Louise Ward are still core players while their Kilkerrin-Clonberne clubmate Olivia Divilly continues to be a devastating force up front. Martha Byrne and Carla Rowe both started for Dublin that day along with Sinéad Goldrick who scored a first-half goal.
3. Paul Casey and Derek Murray Chasing All-Ireland In Hot-Seat
Similar to Kerry, Dublin also lost their long-term manager over the winter. Mick Bohan, who masterminded five All-Ireland titles throughout the last decade — including a four-in-a-row between 2017 and 2020 — stepped down after eight years in charge. But following his departure, former Dublin defender Paul Casey took over along with Derek Murray.
The pair brought continuity to the position as they had both served under the previous administration. Bohan brought Casey on board at the outset in 2018, delegating him as a selector and defensive coach. Murray, an All-Ireland U21 winner with Dublin, joined the Dublin Ladies set-up in 2022.
The duo have been hit with some big losses in personnel for 2025. Lauren Magee — who has suffered a torn ACL — is a massive loss for Dublin, as is Jennifer Dunne who is on AFL duty with the Brisbane Lions. But Dublin remain a firm favouirte for the All-Ireland.
They completed a Leinster 12-in-a-row in May before topping Group 4 in the All-Ireland series. They started with a tricky assignment against an emerging Waterford outfit, needing two late scores from Tyrrell and Kate Sullivan to rescue a draw. But they bounced back with a comprehensive 8-18 to 0-7 victory over Leitrim. That was an interesting fixture as sisters Eilish and Laura O'Dowd played on opposite sides, with the former playing at midfield for Dublin. Their cousin Dearbhaile Beirne, who plays soccer for Peamount United, lined out at half-back for Leitrim.
That victory propelled Dublin into the quarter-finals where they dispatched old rivals Cork by 17 points. They restricted their opponents to just four points from play while Tyrrell and Sullivan combined for 2-8, including a penalty from Tyrrell.
Meath players celebrate after winning the 2021 All-Ireland final. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
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4. Meath Seek Return To Glory
Three years on from achieving back-to-back All-Ireland triumphs, Meath are back in the final four of the competition. Since then, they have bowed out at the quarter-final stage in 2023 and 2024. Kerry were their tormentors on both occasions, defeating the Royals by four points and eight points in respective meetings.
They also collided in the 2022 All-Ireland final when Meath were the nine-point victors. Now they will prepare for a fourth consecutive championship meeting. Meath's rise in Ladies Football was a fascinating watch as they became All-Ireland intermediate champions in 2020 after back-to-back final defeats. The following season, they were at the summit of senior Ladies football, denying Dublin a five-in-a-row in the process.
In the wake of Meath's 2022 success, which also included a Division 1 crown, their highly respected manager Eamonn Murray announced that he was stepping down. Another blow followed as Paul Garrigan and Eugene Eivers also left the backroom team to join the Meath men's set-up which was under Colm O'Rourke's watch at the time. Additionally, key players Vikki Wall and Orlagh Lally had signed deals with the AFLW at a time when the window for playing both spots was rapidly closing.
But Wall appears to be still managing that delicate balance. She won a Grand Final with North Melbourne last November and continues to serve Meath with her usual attacking strength.
Along with fellow star forward Emma Duggan, the pair will need to catch fire if the Royals are to dethrone the Kingdom later today.
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TG4 All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-finals - Saturday 19 July
Kerry v Meath; Glenisk O'Connor Park, Tullamore [Throw-in, 5.15pm TG4]
Dublin v Galway; Glenisk O'Connor Park, Tullamore [Throw-in, 7.30pm TG4]
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"And it's always a measure of a fella, how he reacts from mistakes rather than the mistakes themselves, and that's kind of how I try to perceive them. Because if you go out there fearing a mistake, you're never gonna express yourself. You're never gonna perform to your maximum. And that goes for all positions in the field, but when you're playing in goal, and you drop a high ball, 90% of the time it's in the back of the net or it's over the bar. If I'm playing full forward for Rathmore, and I drop a ball, no one gives it a second thought. So it's trying to compartmentalise those individual errors and just trying to react positively to them.' Convinced? Does it actually matter? However long it took Ryan to move on, something beyond the experience of another campaign has hooshed him to a higher plateau. 'I couldn't genuinely put my finger on any one thing," he shrugs. "You do have chats with your coach about the mental side of the game. I've been very fortunate to have two brilliant goalkeeper coaches involved with us over the last number of years. Brian Kelly's involved with us this year, and Brendan Kealy's spent six years with me. They've always been great sounding boards, Diarmuid Murphy before them. And I'd have to give great credit to (Kerry's back-up keeper) Shane Murphy as well. "Shane has been nothing but really positive for my game. And that's a difficult position for him to be in as well. We're both fighting for the same jersey, but he'd be giving me advice as much as I'd be giving him, and we both kinda look out for each other's best interest. And I think that's actually helped both of us in our performances. "It's probably helped Kerry as well in terms of two keepers on a pitch, competent in so many different areas. Just chasing improvement, to be better week-on-week in terms of looking at footage from a game, looking at footage from training, and just trying to tidy up the small areas without getting obsessive about it because, there are kickouts that come off, but if that ball is a quarter of a second later, the opposition get it. And sometimes you gotta cut your cloth and say, 'look, the opposition were on it today. Their press was good. They were able to get the breaking ball'. "Sometimes keepers get too much credit on kickout stats and get too much criticism on the other side of things when they don't go well. It's just trying to find a balance between areas I really want to go after, but not over analysing them and limiting myself when I do go out to play then, if that makes sense.' Ryan's ability to restart left and right is a given these days. He got away what may have been the most important restart of his Kerry career in the 2022 semi-final. But it's his shot-stopping and reflex saves that have further enhanced his No 1 credentials. If he's not ahead of Patton, Morgan, Beggan et al, he's line-ball with them. That 2022 restart to Briain Ó Beaglaoich? 'I've had a lot of them, to be honest. The pressure always seems to come on keepers late in the game. But if Seánie (O'Shea) didn't kick that free, would it have been as important? No. That's the bit. And I'm not sure really. I don't pay too much heed to that. But definitely in the last 10 minutes of games, it seems to become more important.' It's a lazy assumption that, because he operates outfield for Rathmore, that he is a latter-day convert at the behest of Jack O'Connor to keeper. Hardly true. He was a Kennedy Cup keeper for Kerry when he was 13, under the watchful coaching eye of Joby Costello. "I played soccer til 2013 and packed it in after that then. But I got a lot of the basics in terms of footwork, in terms of being vocal, in terms of being a presence in the box. Soccer would be well ahead of GAA in terms of goalkeeper coaching from the youth stage though the GAA is now getting better. In fact, definitely getting better. But I learned a lot of basics then that became second nature to me and perhaps (other) GAA goalkeepers didn't get that coaching. Like, it might have took them a bit longer to develop. And they are something that I still rely on, those basics. "I played in goal with the (Kerry) development squads up to 14, 15, 16. I played with Kerry under Mickey Ned in 2013 and then was minor under Jack the year after." Oh, but the changes this year. The pin-balling of options out the field, the reads that vanish like a fart in the wind. The pressure. 'I suppose it depends on the time in the game, depends on the score in the game, depends on players that are out there. So it's not a one size fits all in terms of kick-outs. There's times you may go to a set play. There's times when you're just trying to see, you're trying to get out quick. Are there pockets anywhere? "So it depends on what's presenting in front of you. You're kind of very reactive to what the opposition are presenting you and particularly what the scoreboard is saying as well because, you might be up three points. There might be three minutes left. You might just need hands on ball. So it depends what's presented in front of you.' He strokes his chin. 'It's been a huge change. And the first thing that comes to mind is that teams used to drop off your kick out, so maybe 30-40% of the time you were guaranteed possession. There is no team, dropping off a kick out, no team at any stage now. So that's the first thing. All your kick outs now there is some element of pressure on them. "Second thing then obviously, the arc has condensed the space. So your ability to break momentum in the game is a little bit more challenging now, because it's harder to get a guaranteed possession. And as always, a keeper is so reliant on what's outside him. He's only as good as the options that are given to him. Obviously, the keeper has to execute the kick, has to make the right decision on where the ball is going, but it's proving a challenge. "And I think every team in the country has struggled in different parts of the year, with their kick out. If I have my goalkeeper hat on, you're relinquishing control a bit more than you'd like, but with my GAA supporter hat on, as a supporter, it adds great excitement and a chaotic nature to the game, which as we can see, the fans are loving. And they're turning out in their droves to watch those games. "You're trying to take on information and make decisions as quick as it's coming in because the picture is constantly changing. I mean, a press is changing, bodies are moving, so you're trying to see, is he really on? Is there an opposition man there? Have we an overload somewhere? Have I got a mismatch one on one? You've probably half a second to make a decision because teams are so good now that if something pops up, it's closed in an instant."
