Running out of the tunnel on All-Ireland final day is one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life – emerging from beneath the Hogan Stand to a cathedral of noise and colour.
That moment you turn the corner of the tunnel and the sunlight hits you from outside, an attack on the senses follows. The music is playing, Jerry Grogan announces “Áth Cliath” and the place erupts. You’ll never feel more alive in your life.
You could have been feeling aches and pains seconds earlier but that all immediately disappears. I swear I’ve seen some lads hit their top speed for the season in that dash from the mouth of the tunnel to the bench for the team photo. And I’ve seen others almost pull a hamstring!
The footballers of Kerry and Donegal get to experience the magic of that moment on Sunday, but right now everything about their day will be framed by how it ends, not how it starts. It’s about taking care of business.
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And you can be sure the business of the kickouts has been high on the agenda for both Jack O’Connor and Jim McGuinness over the last fortnight. It will be a key battleground in this year’s All-Ireland final.
I expect both teams will target the opposition’s half-back line to try to orchestrate mismatches in terms of size and strength.
Michael Murphy will drift out regularly to the middle third on Donegal’s restarts. I’d expect Jason Foley to follow him but if Murphy manages to create a match-up with Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Paul Murphy or Dylan Casey, then you can be sure goalkeeper Shaun Patton will identify that mismatch and aim for his towering number 14.
And it will be the same at the other end of the field. Seán O’Shea might drift over to Ryan McHugh or Peadar Mogan on Kerry’s kickouts, giving goalkeeper Shane Ryan a strong percentage option.
Still, I think Donegal’s objective will actually be to cut off Ryan’s short ball and force him to go long for an aerial contest in the middle. It’s in the middle that they’ll fancy the physical presence of Michael Langan, Hugh McFadden, Ciarán Thompson and Murphy to win possession.
From a confidence perspective, Kerry will enter the game feeling they have already nullified two of the game’s best goalkeepers when it comes to restarts – Ethan Rafferty and Niall Morgan.
But Patton will provide a different puzzle to figure out. His ability to kick over the press – with huge length and an arrow-like trajectory – provides Donegal with the potential to exploit the oceans of space at the other end. So Kerry must find the right balance with their press.
For Donegal, one of the big deliberations over the last fortnight will have been how to curtail David Clifford.
There is a comparison with how Lionel Messi dragged a fairly average Argentina team to win the 2022 World Cup to what Clifford has been doing with Kerry this season.
[ The obvious way Donegal can be beaten by Kerry is ... David CliffordOpens in new window ]
Brendan McCole will almost certainly pick him up but whenever Kerry have possession, Donegal will strive to get a double-up. McCole will try put him on his right foot and whenever Clifford looks to come back on his left, Donegal will aim to have a second defender there to close off that possibility.
A case of “if you’re going to score, then score with your right because we’re not going to let you come back on your left and bang it over”.
McGuinness and Donegal are too experienced to put all their focus on Clifford, though. They’ll have their homework done on all of the Kerry players. And vice versa.
They’ll know the areas O’Shea likes to shoot from and they’ll be aware he’s going to kick with his right foot nine times out of 10. They’ll have studied Paudie Clifford’s movement patterns and dummies. Nothing will be left to chance.
I don’t see Donegal moving way from their zonal system because it has worked for them to get to this stage of the competition, but they’ll be primed for the right moment to put heat on the ball.
And that is when there will be the potential for them to force game-defining turnovers.
When they turn the ball over, Donegal’s ability to break at pace and with huge numbers overwhelms the opposition.
There is a significant risk-reward element to such counterattacks because if they get caught halfway up the field, they are exposed at the back. But Donegal are happy to take that risk because they believe over the 70 minutes there is more to be gained than lost.
That pure abandonment is so impressive to watch. When they turn over the ball, they’re not surveying the scene to see if they have their three defenders still inside the half. There’s just an innate trust that somebody will do it.
Donegal’s only concern is to beat the opposition up the pitch before they can get 11 defenders back. They want to score off the first phase of the attack.
With these new rules, you play a game where most of your attacks are structured 11 v 11 plays, but if you see an opportunity to catch a team with a rapid counterattack, you have to be brave enough to seize the opportunity. Not all teams grasp that bravery.
I’d imagine for months now, during Donegal’s training sessions, they have been endlessly going through turnover scenarios until it has become part of their DNA. Now, whenever they turn the ball over inside their 45, they’re gone, 45-metre line to end line, boom. They would have been repping and repping those drills. It’s now become their identity.
Kerry have the same ambition when they turn over the ball; they’re looking to go fast too, but their instinct is to kick the ball whereas Donegal let their runners off the leash.
My fear for Kerry is that they might struggle to contain those counterattacks. I also think too much of what they do in the final could hinge on David Clifford. What happens if he doesn’t deliver another eight- or nine-out-of-ten performance?
He has scored a staggering 8-53 so far in this year’s championship. But Donegal will have crunched the numbers. If they stop him from getting near that 1-9, 1-10 territory, will the rest of the Kerry forwards be able to contribute enough to outscore Donegal?
[ How Kerry or Donegal could win or lose the All-Ireland finalOpens in new window ]
Kerry will need a bolter from the pack, somebody like Dylan Geaney to score 0-6 or an impact player from the bench hitting 1-2. I’m just not convinced that is going to happen.
Donegal have a broader spread of scoring options.
In their last five games, they had 12 different scorers against Meath, nine against Monaghan, 12 against Louth, 10 against Mayo, 12 against Cavan.
Kerry had seven different scorers against Tyrone, nine against Armagh, eight against Cavan, six against Meath, nine against Cork.
Crucially, Donegal have been consistently getting scores off the bench too and they have serious depth with the likes of Paddy McBrearty, Dáire Ó Baoill and Jason McGee primed to enter the fray.
Both teams will get to experience the magic of coming out from the Hogan Stand tunnel on Sunday but only one will get the opportunity to walk up the steps to lift Sam Maguire later that evening. It feels like Donegal’s moment.
