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Irish Examiner
21 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Kerry chairman optimistic Jack O'Connor will remain in charge for 2026
Kerry chairman Patrick O'Sullivan is optimistic Jack O'Connor will remain on for a fifth season in charge in 2026 despite the All-Ireland winning manager's intimations he will be stepping down. O'Connor has yet to make a decision on his future but has indicated this fourth year of his third term in charge will be his last. Asked about his future on Sunday, he said: 'I was going out the door Thursday evening with the with the bag and my missus [Bridie] took a picture of me going out the gate. And I already know that'll be up on the wall, that was my last, so I'd say no, she'll be framing that one.' However, O'Sullivan believes the five-time All-Ireland SFC manager will stay on next season as Kerry look to win a 40th All-Ireland SFC and there will be conversations had in the coming weeks. 'Jack has given a lifetime's service to the association in Kerry with his club and the county,' said O'Sullivan. 'At the start of the year, Jack was edging that way (stepping down) but winning yesterday and with the backing of the players I think Jack will stay on for another year. 'That's a discussion we will have over the next couple of weeks. What is best for Kerry will happen. Jack is an honorable man, he has been and it's a discussion for us going forward.' Sunday's victory marked a third All-Ireland title won during the chairmanship of O'Sullivan, who was also at the helm in 2014 and '22. He pointed to the pain suffered by players in the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to would-be champions Armagh last July. 'I'll be honest, going into the All-Ireland final Jimmy McGuinness spoke about the hurt of 11 years ago. In the 11 years since, we had lost three All-Ireland finals and won one so we had hurt ourselves. Kerry County Board chairman Patrick O'Sullivan brings the Sam Maguire cup out of the dressing-room. Pic: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile. 'We had a direction where we wanted to go and when we were beaten by Armagh last year, it was the toughest pill we had to swallow for a long time. From that game, there were conversations among the people in the leadership group in the team and they drove it on and those fellas who spoke were leaders on the pitch.' The Kerry players, management and board officials left Dublin before lunch-time on Monday to visit sponsors Kerry Group headquarters in Naas. They were then travelling by train from Sallins to Rathmore for the beginning of their homecoming, which will culminate in Tralee this evening.
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Kerry's embrace of new rules helped them to collect 29th All-Ireland SFC title
All-Ireland SFC final: Kerry 1-26 (1-5-16) Donegal 0-19 (0-0-19) This, we should have seen coming. Kerry may be hierarchy but when it comes to new rules, they have been fleet of foot to embrace them. Fifty years ago, they won an All-Ireland with the allowance of the open hand-pass among other tweaks. When all hand-pass scores were banned a handful of years later, they sucked it in and were champions again. Their jubilee team celebrated before this final won in a year where substitutes were increased from three to five. Paul Geaney and Paul Murphy were around in 2014 when they last beat Donegal in a final to cap a season when the black card was introduced. You can have all your Jack O'Connor league All-Ireland double, lucky Hill 16 side dressing room and Kerry playing in blue piseogs but when the parameters of the games has shifted, so have they. Until they arrived in Croke Park, they mightn't have been setting the world alight with two-pointers but Armagh knew all about it last month and here they outscored Donegal five orange flags to none. 'We played eight games in nine weeks in the league in bad conditions,' opened the ageless O'Connor about why they took time to warm to the new rule. 'There wasn't much time now to be working on two pointers. We're basically recovering and doing a bit of fitness work and basic stuff during the league. 'So as soon as the league was over, we went to the training camp, we started working at it then because there was a bit of an art in getting the right shooters on the ball at the right angles and coming on the right cuts and stuff. 'So it was around then that we started working on it and we didn't see a big need to work on it in the league because, first of all we didn't have time to do it, and second of all we were scoring goals which were kind of camouflaging the fact that we weren't getting two points or so. Simple enough, simple as that.' Donegal didn't look capable of scoring them and trying to claw back a seven-point half-time deficit without them their task was going to be onerous. Wedded to the system, they didn't help themselves either when most of Donegal was screaming out for Paudie Clifford to be shadowed. In performance and tactics, Kerry outclassed Donegal. Gavin White was a supreme leader, Paudie Clifford may as well have held a baton in his hand such was his influence and with yet another handsome haul David Clifford is line for a third footballer of the year award. Hugh McFadden had been withdrawn from the Donegal starting team in the hour before the game. Caolan McGonagle was expected to start but probably not at the expense of the Killybegs man. McGonagle was his team's second scorer but he had a slack enough first half and he wasn't alone in this Donegal team who seemed shellshocked by the intensity of Kerry's beginning. White won the toss and chose to enjoy the breeze into the Davin Stand in the first half and he led by example when he blitzed onto the ball from the throw-in and fed Dylan Geaney for the first score after just 11 seconds. Oisín Gallen responded in the second minute but Kerry picked off the next couple of points. Seán O'Brien punched a ball to the edge of the square over the bar then Kerry won the resultant kick-out and White cut in from the wing to fist over another point. After McGonagle's point, White repeated the trick only this time with his foot and soon enough Donegal were shifting Ciarán Moore from Joe O'Connor's side to pick up White when he came forward. Donegal's problems extended beyond White, though. Paudie Clifford was orchestrating so much and while Finnbarr Roarty was pushed out onto him his marking was surprisingly loose. The elder Clifford opened his account in the eighth minute, one of four Kerry scores without response. David Clifford thumped over his first of three opening-half two-pointers in the ninth minute after a McColgan error. He raised another orange flag three minutes later and then O'Brien doubled his contribution. Donegal were reeling but Gallen offered some respite with a point but Clifford was fouled outside the arc by Brendan McCole and Seán O'Shea applied the punishment to stretch Kerry's lead to eight in the 15th minute. O'Brien was everywhere and made a big block on a Roarty point attempt before Clifford's tally grew to five following a McGonagle error. When Michael Murphy kicked a free against the post and a goal move involving him and Ryan McHugh was overcooked, it seemed too much was going awry for the Ulster champions. However, Gallen was on hand to make sure that attack counted for something in the form of a 22nd minute point and the following three scores were Donegal ones, two from Murphy, as the gap collapsed to four. Ending eight minutes without a score, a O'Shea free for a dubious Roarty foul on Paudie Clifford followed by Geaney's second steadied Kerry only for those scores to be cancelled out by Conor and Shane O'Donnell. However, Kerry killed the clock sufficiently enough at the end of the half to tee up David Clifford for a crowd-rousing third two-pointer. He clenched his fist to the Kerry following as he wheeled around to head to the dressing room having put his side 0-17 to 0-10 up. McFadden's introduction along with Jason McGee's earlier made a contest of Kerry's kick-out and was key to Donegal getting back within four points midway through the second half. That and Michael Murphy's boot, four converted frees in the third quarter. White's third point made it a five-point game in the 54th minute although he appeared to overcarry. McGee was infringed upon for Murphy's fifth free of the half and Murphy slotted it over. A couple of two-point free opportunities came Kerry's way within three minutes. Shane Ryan slipped for the first won by Paudie Clifford but when Paudie claimed another one Seán O'Shea drew it over and Kerry were six to the good. That became seven when a Donegal kick-out was pounced on and Paudie Clifford applied the finishing touch with his fist. David Clifford brought his total to nine and it was appropriate that another star of the season, Joe O'Connor, applied the coup de grace with a final-minute goal. If this was his namesake Jack's last gift to Kerry as manager, it was a beautiful one. The old dog learning new tricks and teaching them too. Scorers for Kerry: D. Clifford (0-9, 3 tps); S. O'Shea (0-6, 2 tp frees, 1 free); D. Geaney, G. White, P. Clifford (0-3 each); J. O'Connor (1-0); S. O'Brien (0-2). Scorers for Donegal: M. Murphy (0-8, 6 frees); C. O'Donnell (0-4); O. Gallen (0-3); S. O'Donnell (0-2); C. McConagle, D. Ó Baoill (0-1 each). KERRY: S. Ryan; P. Murphy, J. Foley, D. Casey; B. Ó Beaglaoich, G. White (c), M. Breen; S. O'Brien, M. O'Shea; J. O'Connor, S. O'Shea, G. O'Sullivan; D. Clifford, P. Clifford, D. Geaney. Subs for Kerry: D. O'Connor for S. O'Brien (50); K. Spillane for D. Geaney (54); E. Looney for B. Ó Beaglaoich (63); T. Morley for M. Breen (65); M. Burns for G. O'Sullivan (69). DONEGAL: S. Patton; C. McColgan, F. Roarty, B. McCole; E. Gallagher, P. Mogan, C. Moore; C. McGonagle, M. Langan; R. McHugh, C. Thompson, S. O'Donnell; C. O'Donnell, M. Murphy, O. Gallen. Subs for Donegal: D. Ó Baoill for C. Thompson (inj 23); H. McFadden for C. McColgan (h-t); J. McGee for R. McHugh (inj 40); P. McBrearty for O. Gallen (50); J. Brennan for E. Gallagher (58). Referee: B. Cawley (Kildare).
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
'No qualms' for Jim McGuinness after Donegal fall short in All-Ireland final
Jim McGuinness admitted he had no complaints in the wake of his Donegal side's All-Ireland SFC final defeat to Kerry. The Ulster men fell short by a 1-26 to 0-19 margin at Croke Park as the Kingdom ran out relatively comfortable winners and denied Donegal the chance to get their hands on Sam Maguire for just the third time in their history. Speaking to RTÉ Sport, McGuinness who was player and manager respectively for Donegal's two previous All-Ireland triumphs, admitted that Kerry were the better team on the day. "Hard one to take. Felt very good going into the game and it didn't turn out that way. Hats off to Kerry, very good performance," he said. "We struggled with wee bits and pieces in the game and paid heavy prices. I suppose, a bigger analysis will probably be first half, I thought both teams were tracking scores well in the first half but Kerry seemed to go after the twos and kicked a lot of them. "David Clifford, I suppose some of them were absolutely exceptional so we have no qualms. We've no qualms at all. "Disappointed for the boys, disappointed for our supporters. They were there with us. They were waiting for things to happen and it didn't happen. Listen, some days, you just have to take it on the chin. "It's just the bottom line. You have to take your medicine and that's what we're going to have to do today." 'No qualms' - Donegal boss Jim McGuinness admits Kerry were rightful winners of today's All-Ireland Football Championship final as his team came up short. #sundaygame — The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 27, 2025 Donegal did manage to get back to within four points of Kerry in the second half but ultimately that was as close as the gap would get between then and the hooter. "One of the times we got it back to four, we had three wides in a row at that stage," McGuinness said. "So even one point there might have made the difference in terms of momentum shift and would have kept you in the game, particularly with the new rules. "There's always that opportunity then. But once them things are sort of drifting on the wrong side of it, then Kerry are always going to respond anyway at certain times. "And then it got away again at the end. As I said earlier, hats off to Kerry. They've come in, they've done the business and we'll have to go home and think about it."
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
All you need to know about Kerry v Donegal in the All-Ireland football final
All-Ireland SFC final: Donegal v Kerry, Croke Park, 3.30pm (B. Cawley, Kildare) Live RTÉ2, BBC2 The SFC kicked off last April 5, and to date there have been 98 games played, with one to go. HOW THEY GOT THERE DONEGAL (Won 9, Lost 1) Ulster SFC preliminary rd: Donegal 1-25 Derry 1-15. Ulster SFC quarter-final: Donegal 0-23 Monaghan 0-21. Ulster SFC semi-final: Donegal 1-19 Down 0-16 Ulster SFC final: Donegal 2-23 Armagh 0-28 (after extra time) All-Ireland SFC group stages: Tyrone 2-17 Donegal 0-20, Donegal 3-26 Cavan 1-13, Donegal 0-19 Mayo 1-15. All-Ireland SFC prelim quarter-final: Donegal 2-22 Louth 0-12 All-Ireland SFC quarter-final: Donegal 1-26 Monaghan 1-20 All-Ireland SFC semi-final: Donegal 3-26 Meath 0-15. KERRY (Won 7, Lost 1) Munster SFC semi-final: Kerry 3-21 Cork 1-25 (after extra time) Munster SFC final: Kerry 4-20 Clare 0-21 All-Ireland SFC group stages: Kerry 3-18 Roscommon 0-17, Kerry 1-28 Cork 0-20, Meath 1-22 Kerry 0-16. All-Ireland SFC prelim quarter-final: Kerry 3-20 Cavan 1-17 All-Ireland SFC quarter-final: Kerry 0-32 Armagh 1-21. All-Ireland SFC semi-final: Kerry 1-20 Tyrone 0-17. DID YOU KNOW? Jack O'Connor is leading Kerry into the All-Ireland Final for the eighth time, having presided over wins in 2004 (Mayo), 2006 (Mayo), 2009 (Cork), 2022 (Galway) and defeats in 2005 (Tyrone) 2011 (Dublin) and 2023 (Dublin). Both Donegal and Kerry have been taken to extra-time once in this championship, with both winning. Kerry beat Cork by two points in the Munster Semi-Final, while Donegal beat Armagh by a point in the Ulster Final. Brendan Cawley is the first referee from Kildare to referee an All-Ireland Final since Michael Monahan in 2005 (Kerry v Tyrone). 2025 Allianz League and Championship Records: Donegal: P17, W13, Lost 4 (Galway, Tyrone and Mayo in Division 1 and Tyrone in SFC). Kerry: P16; W12, L4 (Donegal, Dublin and Mayo in Division 1 and Meath in SFC). KERRY v Ulster opposition in All-Ireland finals (W5, D1, L6) 1930: Kerry 3-11 Monaghan 0-2 1937: Kerry 2-5 Cavan 1-8 (draw) 1937: Kerry 4-4 Cavan 1-7 (replay) 1947: Cavan 2-11 Kerry 2-7. 1953: Kerry 0-13 Armagh 1-6. 1960: Down 2-10 Kerry 0-8. 1968: Down 2-12 Kerry 1-13. 1986: Kerry 2-15 Tyrone 1-10. 2002: Armagh 1-12 Kerry 0-14. 2005: Tyrone 1-16 Kerry 2-10. 2008: Tyrone 1-15 Kerry 0-14. 2014: Kerry 2-9 Donegal 0-12. John Fogarty's big match preview You might think there's nought between this pair. We speak not of 2014 but the indications in Kerry that Donegal's 2025 preparations began before the clocks went back in '24. 'I think the whole country knows they have a lot of training done, a good bit more than us,' said Jack O'Connor in January before the counties' Division 1, Round 1 game, which was postponed as Donegal couldn't travel. 'I'm trying to be as diplomatic as I can there.' Kerry know they have been in the crosshairs of Jim McGuinness for quite some time now. Nevertheless, irrespective of their injuries and playing just one less game than Donegal this year, they will consider themselves fresher. To offset Donegal's energy, they will have to be. Putting an argument together for a Donegal win isn't difficult – their superior spread of scorers, what should be an advantage in midfield and the towering presence of Michael Murphy. Their recent routs against Monaghan and Meath might suggest they are peaking at the right time. But Kerry's Croke Park experiences have come against Division 1 opposition. Adding Donegal to Armagh and Tyrone would complete quite the trifecta for O'Connor. In even better form than 2022, David Clifford will have a shadow behind him in Brendan McCole and in front of him likely in the form of Ryan McHugh. To combat that resistance, the drives Joe O'Connor, Gavin White and Brian Ó Beaglaoich are what will pull Donegal out of shape and the Ulster champions have been porous on occasions. Where it seems an occupational hazard for Kerry and Shane Ryan's expert shot-stopping is consider the fail safe, such a trade-off is not part of the deal for Donegal. Two of Jack O'Connor's last two All-Ireland successes have been achieved without a goal. If they aren't booming over two-pointers, they will have to find the net here. Paul Geaney's clinical eye was missed as Kerry gave up an abundance of goal chances against Tyrone. He should see action for the first time since the group game against Cork. Before he does, Seán O'Shea's high level of execution could be utilised in the inside line. From McGuinness to Ryan McHugh to Paddy McBrearty, the remaining members of Donegal's class of 2014 have spoken openly about how that final defeat has haunted them. For Murphy too, it must be too be a potent rallying cause. If captain McBrearty believes Donegal have underachieved since 2012, what must Kerry's golden generation of minors think of these past eight senior seasons? Sunday marks skipper White, Clifford, Seán O'Shea, Diarmuid O'Connor and Ó Beaglaoich's fourth final, excluding the 2019 replay. Their one All-Ireland brings to mind what O'Connor told the Mayo dressing room after the 2006 final, that one season without the Sam Maguire Cup was akin to the 55 years Mayo at that time had been waiting for the cannister. Donegal's modus operandi seems to be doing it for the county. For Kerry, it's a lot more personal. In what should be a game of seconds, their years of hurt can count for more. Verdict: Kerry.
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Sportsguide: Kerry v Donegal, Test Two on Lions Tour and Women's Euro final
Sportsguide: Kerry v Donegal, Test Two on Lions Tour and Women's Euro final It is another action packed weekend of sport with the All-Ireland SFC final between Kerry and Donegal, the second Test between the Lions and Australia and the Women's Euro final between England and Spain - all you need to know here.
