Donegal v Kerry: Throw-in time, TV details and team news about All-Ireland football final
Donegal
will play
Kerry
in the 2025 All-Ireland senior
football championship
final at Croke Park. Throw-in is on Sunday at 3.30pm.
Where can I watch?
You can watch the final on RTÉ One, coverage starts at 2.15pm. Alternatively, the game is also on BBC Two, where coverage starts at 3pm. You can also follow the action on our live blog on
The Irish Times Sport website
.
Paths to the final
Donegal become the first team to play 11 championship matches in one season, their single defeat coming to Tyrone in a group stage game.
Ulster Championship:
READ MORE
Donegal 1-25 Derry 1-25
Monaghan 0-21 Donegal 0-23
Donegal 1-19 Down 0-16
Donegal 2-23 Armagh 0-28
All-Ireland Series:
Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17
Cavan 1-13 Donegal 3-26
Donegal 0-19 Mayo 1-15
Donegal 2-22 Louth 0-12
Donegal 1-26 Monaghan 1-20
Donegal 3-26 Meath 0-15
Kerry, meanwhile, will be playing their ninth game in the final, also losing a group game, to Meath. Six of their eight victories have been by eight or more points.
Munster Championship:
Cork 1-25 Kerry 3-21
Kerry 4-20 Clare 0-21
All-Ireland Series:
Kerry 3-18 Roscommon 0-17
Cork 0-20 Kerry 1-28
Meath 1-22 Kerry 0-16
Kerry 3-20 Cavan 1-17
Kerry 0-32 Armagh 1-21
Kerry 1-20 Tyrone 0-17
What are the bookies saying?
Kerry are just about favourites with the bookies, 8-11 to evens, maybe favouring their experience in finals and/or the fact they have
David Clifford
.
Can Jim McGuinness and Michael Murphy pull another out of the bag?
Donegal manager Jim McGuinness celebrates with Michael Murphy after the final whistle. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho
Donegal have only been in three finals in their history and
Jim McGuinness
was heavily involved in them all. Playing in 1992, they beat Dublin in the final. Twenty years later, McGuinness led Donegal to the Sam Maguire again as manager, and again two years later in a final they lost to Kerry. A fourth All-Ireland final beckons and they look as strong as they've looked since McGuinness was last at the helm.
After losing in the semi-finals last year, legendary forward
Michael Murphy
came out of retirement after dabbling in punditry at GAAGo and with a column in this newspaper. Murphy, at almost 36 years old, has been a talismanic figure in bringing his county back to the final, as top scorer for Donegal and winning lots of aerial duels and physical battles.
But the star of McGuinness's show is undoubtedly the collective, as well as their fitness and conditioning, where the tireless half backs and forwards like Ryan McHugh, Péadar Mogan and Ciarán Moore have had big seasons. Donegal defend in numbers and then counter up the pitch with intensity, and few have been able to live with them at full throttle, as Meath found in the semi-final.
Can Donegal stop David Clifford?
Kerry's David Clifford. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
What constitutes stopping David Clifford for Donegal? The Kerry forward is one of the best to ever grace the game and in seemingly unstoppable form. A masterful performance by Mick Fitzsimons for Dublin limited Clifford to only two points from play in the 2023 final, but even stopping Clifford to four or five from play or keeping him out of the goals could be considered a great effort.
Clifford has scored four goals and 23 points in his last three games. If Donegal focus too many resources on stopping Clifford then his brother Paudie and Seán O'Shea can wreak havoc. The new rules focusing on attacking football have been a boost for Kerry, with the best forwards in Ireland, and it gives them the best chance of winning the Sam Maguire.
Team news
The teams will be updated here when they are made available.
Diarmuid O'Connor participated in the full Kerry training session on Saturday, increasing hopes that the midfielder will make his return from a shoulder injury. Paul Geaney also took part after a shoulder injury, with Tom O'Sullivan still not fully back after a calf injury.
Can I buy tickets?
All-Ireland final tickets do not go on public sale, they go straight to the clubs. So it may be a case of knowing the right person, the amount going to each club at the discretion of the county boards of the competing counties. Raffling tickets is a common way to win them, so maybe have your fingers crossed for your lucky number to be called out.
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Just as it was absent after their stunning All-Ireland quarter-final win over Armagh, the Kerry team bus wasn't near their dressing room following the semi-final victory against Tyrone. Instead, parked outside the door of it under the Hogan Stand beside trusty kit man Colm Whelan's van was a truck with C11 Recovery emblazoned along the side. Eagle-eyed viewers of The Open Championship in Portrush last week may also have noticed it in the players' area. On Instagram, would-be champion Scottie Scheffler and former Masters winner Jon Rahm were pictured outside it. For the past few seasons, Kerry have been using the Kildare-based mobile recovery unit, which features Avantopool ice baths and compression boots. Cork GAA, Munster Rugby, Basketball and Cricket Ireland are among its founder Ryan Casey's other clients. 'For the last number of years, any time we would have got to Croke Park, a recovery guy comes in,' Kerry selector of the previous three seasons Mike Quirke told the Irish Examiner football podcast last month. 'There would be ice baths in the shower area. As soon as that quarter-final is over, the boys goe straight in there for the next day. 'It's a great service and you know what it's a nice thing for players as well because you're saying, 'The recovery guy is booked because we're going to be here in two weeks' time.'' Psychologically, it is most certainly a boost and almost as self-fulfilling and prophetic was something that occurred across Jones Road last Saturday week. Outside of All-Ireland finals in GAA HQ, Kerry have their post-match meal in the Croke Park Hotel but there they were also fitted for their All-Ireland final suits. A couple of hours after qualifying for the final and they were already dealing with the frills and fuss that come with the day. This month three years ago, Jack O'Connor spoke of the distractions around All-Ireland final day. 'They have to understand that this is about performing on the big day and not getting carried away with any sideshows or tickets and looking after their partners the night before and all this. There are a lot of sideshows. 'Getting measured for suits, tickets and accommodation for their partners and all that, you have to absolutely park all of that stuff and concentrate on the performance because it will be well forgotten about if we can't get over the line now.' The logistics and other non-management backroom members pride themselves on their diligent levels of preparation. As they did for the last two games, Kerry will stay in Dunboyne the night before the game with Donegal also expected to spend Saturday in Meath in Enfield (Kerry's banquet is the Clayton Hotel Burlington on Leeson Street and Donegal's takes place in The Radisson Hotel in Golden Lane). Kerry's bookings had been arranged for months – Donegal stayed in the Burlington hotel when they won the 2012 final but Kerry were there when they beat them two years later. For last month's quarter-final, Kerry had heard Armagh attempted to book into the regular Dunboyne base. The result mightn't have gone the team's way but for the final group game against Meath in Tullamore last month, they had organised their accommodation in Mullingar weeks before Glenisk O'Connor Park was confirmed as the venue. In 2022, Kerry made an advance payment on their hotel for an All-Ireland quarter-final assuming they would beat Limerick in the Munster final. The pre-paid booking saved them around €7,000. Last year, accommodation costs for Kerry totalled €165,436 compared to €177,302 in 2023. When Kerry beat Dublin in the following semi-final that year, they hadn't a hotel booked for the night after the final. The team they had vanquished no longer needed their sleeping partners The Gibson Hotel and took their place. There may have been some confusion about April's training camp in Portugal. Last November, treasurer Paudie Healy told local media it would not be taking place only for that decision to be reversed. 'Sure we're going anyway,' smiled O'Connor about the board agreeing to the trip after Kerry claimed the Division 1 title. Like other counties realised, going abroad worked out cheaper than a camp at home but for Kerry who had played seven games in eight weeks it was also a chance to work on two-pointers. 'It's a skill getting the right kickers on it and creating the space, so we had a bit more time starting with the training camp to work on stuff like that,' he recalled earlier this month. 'That was the real practical reason.' A total of 25 in their eight SFC games compared to 11 in the same amount of league fixtures would suggest the work done on two-pointers on the break was money well spent.
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