The All-Ireland finals feel pleasingly fresh even if the teams are familiar to each other
Ciarán Murphy: Mass hysteria in store even if Clare don’t drink Cork’s milkshakeSo there is novelty for the public, but there is also a huge amount of familiarity between the teams. This will be the first time that both All-Ireland final pairings will be rematches from earlier in the season.
The situation in football is slightly different. Dublin have been coming back to the pack in the last few years, and retirements over the course of the next few months may further hurt their chances for next year. And the other half of many people’s presumptive “Big Two” at the start of the year is an even more difficult team to pin down.
Kerry played poorly all year, and lost to the first good team they met. I fail to see how this year could possibly be described as one that got away. Maybe any year when you have David Clifford and you fail to just waterski your way to an All-Ireland off the sweat of his brow counts as an opportunity missed? Kerry certainly played as if that was in large part their plan this year.
There was little or nothing we didn’t already know about Limerick, Kilkenny, Dublin or Kerry at this stage last year. This isn’t always a bad thing, as familiarity with players and teams can breed strong feelings, one way or the other. But there is a freshness about the four teams looking ahead to their big day this year.
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