Donegal v Kerry All-Ireland: Smoking guns, mind games and playing silly beggars

Irish Daily Mirror

17 hours ago

The mind games - ramped into overdrive in recent hours - may not be over yet as the official Donegal and Kerry All-Ireland final squads were released by the GAA earlier today.
Last night Kerry named a squad of 28 players via their own County Board, rather than the 26 players that can be named in a Championship match day panel.
This was almost certainly a move designed to keep Donegal guessing until the official GAA match day squads were released today.
Donegal's decision to name a squad of 35 via their official social media channels this morning was another move in a familiar game of bluff, designed to buy a few hours and eat into the opposition's time to prepare their final moves.
Team squads of 26 have to be with the GAA by 9am on the Thursday morning of the week of a Championship game.
Two players in that 26 can be replaced if it's signed off on for medical reasons, with these changes only made public on the GAA website approximately an hour before throw-in.
This leaves both Jim McGuinness and Jack O'Connor still able to change their squads in the coming hours and day, but neither will probably know if the other has or not until the afternoon of the game.
Both managers have named all their big guns in their respective panels so drafting a returning star into the squad out of the blue isn't going to happen.
But with Diarmuid O'Connor not on the bench against Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final, but on the bench here - with Conor Geaney losing out - it could mean two things.
One, midfielder O'Connor's injury has improved significantly. Two, he might be chanced if needed because it's the last game of the year. And three, he's not fit and it's a bluff to muddy the waters a little for Donegal in the game of inches.
O'Connor could yet be replaced on the bench, potentially by Conor Geaney, who started the All-Ireland quarter-final victory over Armagh.
Conor Geaney and Dara Moynihan, who has missed most of the year through injury, were the two players named in Kerry GAA's 28 man squad last night (Thursday) but not in the official 26, in what seemed a strange move.
Maybe Kerry are looking for Donegal to read something into it when there is nothing there. Donegal's decision to name 35 players is more in keeping with traditional GAA moves, thus recognising their entire squad effort.
That means they effectively listed 20 subs as opposed to the 11 required for the match day programme, plus a stand-by list of four, which is not made public, but probably should be given the frequency of changes in recent weeks.
Paul Geaney was in the Kerry squad for the Tyrone win after coming back from injury, but wasn't used.
He's named on the bench again, but it wouldn't be a major shock if he started here, particularly given the goals he grabbed in All-Ireland finals against Donegal (2014) and Dublin (2023).
Geaney's cousin Dylan is most under threat as Kerry most likely won't want to tamper with the big engines in their team, coming face to face with Donegal.
There are certainly machinations and manoeuvrings going on behind the scenes though.
By the time Kerry released their 28 man panel at 7.59pm on their social media channels last night (Thursday), their official 26 man squad would have been on the GAA's desk for a minimum of 12 hours.
In Donegal's case, they released their team at 10.31am this morning (Friday), so their 26 man squad was with the GAA for over 25 hours.
The reason the GAA give for not releasing the squads on a Thursday themselves is to give counties the opportunity to unveil the panels via their own social media channels for promotional purposes.
Unsurprisingly, Donegal and Kerry, as tends to happen now, named the same sides which started thier last games - the wins over Meath and Tyrone respectively.
And both could well start with those sides. Jim McGuinness has used big midfielder Jason McGee as an impact sub, coming in for Hugh McFadden.
It's a tried and trusted formula and McGee would have been starting regularly before now across Donegal's 10 Championship games to date if McGuinness felt he was best deployed from the throw-up.
Daire Ó Baoill is another option if McGuinness decides to go more offensive, but with Kerry's attacking prowess it seems more likely Caolan McColgan, who forced his way into the side for the Mayo win may start again to try and keep it tight early on.
It's difficult to see any changes elsewhere with Ó Baoill and Patrick McBrearty both capable of making big impacts off the bench.
Kerry's most likely switch would be Paul Geaney for Conor Geaney, but it's one Donegal would be acutely aware of.
DONEGAL: S Patton, F Roarty, B McCole, P Mogan, R McHugh, E Ban Gallagher, C McColgan, H McFadden, M Langan, S O'Donnell, C Thompson, C Moore, C O'Donnell, M Murphy, O Gallen.
SUBS: G Mulreaney, S McMenamin, O McFadden Ferry, E McHugh, C McColgan, A Doherty, P McBrearty, J Brennan, N O'Donnell D Ó Baoill, J McGee.
KERRY: S Ryan, P Murphy, J Foley, D Case, B Ó Beaglaoích, M Geaney, G White, S O'Brien, M O'Shea, J O'Connor, S O'Shea, G O'Sullivan, D Clifford, P Clifford, D Geaney.
SUBS: S Murphy, K Spillane, E Looney, T L O'Sullivan, T Morley, P Geaney, M Burns, T Brosnan, A Heinrich, T Kennedy, D O'Connor.