Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is an Irish Independent Podcast. Hello everybody and welcome to the Indosport Podcast. Today we are discussing Gaelic football and specifically the National League Finals that were on in Croke Park over the weekend. Carlo got things underway on Saturday with an extra-time victory over Longford. Their first win in headquarters in 55 years and then it was Downs' turn later in the evening.
They took a big step towards Sam Maguire football with another extra-time victory over Wexford. Then yesterday, the curtain raiser was Meath and Cork. Meath pulled out a very impressive victory, just as kind of dramatic and exciting as we had hoped going in. And then the main event, Donegal versus Kerry.
Possibly not the contest in terms of an even back and forth that we expected, but God has thrown up a whole host of narratives after Donegal 320, Kerry 210 yesterday.
Chapter 2: What were the highlights of the Gaelic football league finals?
I'm glad to be joined for our chat today by Colm Keyes. Colm, how are you?
Goodwill.
Also I have Conor McKeown with me. Conor, how are things? Goodwill. And Philly McMahon for the first time in 2026. A five-time National League winner is back with us. Philly, how are things? Everything's great, yeah. Thanks. Yeah, lots to get into today. A reminder that our GA podcast coverage on Indosport is sponsored by AIB.
Proud sponsors of Club and County, AIB proudly celebrate the joy, dedication and support that lies at the heart of Gaelic games in every community and player across the nation. Philly, I'll give you first crack at it as we haven't heard from you in a while. Yeah. Obviously, the All-Ireland Final last year, one of the most debated tactical performances from Donegal's perspective.
So going in on Sunday, even though both managers have been at pains to tee up that they didn't care or they had different priorities, we were waiting for the first ball to be thrown in to see how things would unfold. Not sure anyone expected that. Kerry getting out with a 13-point defeat in the end, which is their heaviest since that Meade game in 2001.
And even then, they kind of had to scrap and claw to avoid making it the heaviest defeat in Kerry's history. We'll get into the specifics in a minute, but just how it all played out. What are your big thoughts on that?
Do you know what, when you're at that stage of the season, you just want another extra game and to play a top quality opposition, you're in bonus territory and you just don't want to be going and doing runs that week.
So I think both players were set out, regardless of what the silverware was at the end of it, I think both players will kind of be thinking, do you know what, this is great, we're in Crow Park, we're playing a game against...
a team that if it's Donegal that we all want it and possibly we need to put a marker down here for later in the year and Kerry are kind of going look we need to keep the foot down on the throats of these because these feel like they're the next big opponents for us so it was for me it was
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Chapter 3: How did Donegal dominate the match against Kerry?
It was one of those things where it started to drift fairly early in the game in terms of energy. And you were looking at Kerry going, hold on a second here. You're not clouding this back. It's getting worse. And the energy started to... You could see in the Kerry players. I'd love to see their GPS stats to see what distance they covered compared to Donegal.
And the efficiency of Donegal was like... Something that I haven't seen in a very long time. And I'm not talking to, you know, I'm talking about like they had 32 attacks and they got 31 shots off. That's incredible. Now you can put that down to them being very efficient on the ball. The movement off the ball was excellent.
every time they were getting into that position where, Kerry, you were setting the defensive structure, you could just see bodies moving all the time and it was very hard for them to, it was like they were just waiting for somebody to slip or someone to be 1v1. Or you could put that down to Donegal's, sorry, Kerry's energy defensively, not being at it, like, you know.
But ultimately, what it comes down to is What comes from this? You know, if you weren't a Kerry, you'd be probably thinking, psychologically, that has a big imprint in where you are right now and what you need to get after. But Kerry, the county they are, they'll be thinking, this is embarrassing. We need to really have a look at where we're at at this time of the year.
And that could really poke the bear for me.
Yeah, let's just give a quick kind of story of the game for people who might not have seen it. Kerry actually get an early goal. It's kind of a cagey first couple of minutes. There was no sign in the first, say, five, six minutes of what might come over the course of the game. Cagey opening, Donegal kick a couple of points, Kerry get a goal.
But then all of a sudden, Donegal pull clear, 13 points to 1-2 at the break. Obviously, that Michael Murphy flashpoint 15 minutes in will be discussed in a few minutes. That was significant as it played on. But 13 points to 1-2 at the break. Kerry kicked the first two in the second half. And then Donegal unleashed a devastating three-goal burst in less than three minutes.
Conor O'Donnell, Michael Murphy and Caleb McGonigal to put the game out of sight. And then by the end of it, Kerry were kind of just trying to keep the score to a somewhat... I don't even know if you'd say manageable perspective. 320 to 210 is how it finished. Colm, because I was interested to see how people would come out of the game, what they'd think about it.
And I just saw, you know, your piece when you said it was going to finish by saying it's an alarming defeat that could leave a scar. Because beforehand there was talk that, you know, whoever won, if the game kind of looked like maybe a bit of shadowboxing or a phony war, we might not be coming out of it with big narratives and takeaways.
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Chapter 4: What were the implications of Kerry's heavy defeat?
Now, Paddy Clifford wasn't there, but it doesn't really matter. It's the ball carrier. And straight away, you could see that Donegal had a different defensive setup. They didn't sit. They marked Kerry when they came over the halfway line. They put pressure on the ball. But what they did was really interesting. And Philly can kind of tell me how...
easy or hard as it is to do but they created a plus one and it was interesting how they did it they would force the Kerry player carrying the ball out to the wing and when they did that they would create the plus one by leaving the Kerry player in the far corner free so now they're marking everybody but a player who you can't really hit with the ball
Then the times that Kerry did come down the middle, it was Gavin Mulroney, the goalkeeper, would press up on the player closest to goal. So they still have a plus one. So there was a couple of times where Kerry did break the tackle, where a runner went past our man, but they always had the sweeper there. And if you compare that to how...
Kerry set up at the far end the number of times Donegal just threw the ball around and waited and Conor O'Donnell's goal was a brilliant brilliant example of this all that happened there was Michael Langham beat his man once he beat his man he was in behind they shifted it off to Conor O'Donnell they got a goal so that was huge now we were watching how Donegal did it because obviously when Kerry get the ball say on one wing and they're leaving the man free in the far corner Conor
When the ball goes around the arc, everybody has to move and sink and everybody has to see what the person around them. So it looks like the sort of thing that has to be really, really well drilled because they're all kind of drifting. Somebody is stepping up and somebody and then a player who was marked is now being left free. But that was a very obvious thing that they did.
The other thing that they did was the kick out. Do you remember last year when Michael Murphy was chasing Paul Murphy into the corner when he was chasing Jason Foley into the corner doing shuttle runs all day. This time Donegal basically set up with their quicker men inside on the press and they also marked Zonal. So it forced Kerry into midfield with nearly all the kicks.
And once they got there, they had Hugh McFadden and they had Jason McGee in there. And I think they won eight kickouts in a row in the first half, and that was the winning and losing of the game. So to me, they were the two big tactical changes from last year. They went kind of man-on-man defensively, but managed to generate a plus one, which is the key, really.
Like, if you have a plus one, it gives you that... it gives you that luxury that you're able to be aggressive in how you defend instead of passive. And then they protected Murphy and their big men by going kind of zonal. Now, in some cases, they had five people because Kerry were trying to drop men back to get their kickouts away quickly.
But those two things are completely opposed to what they did last year. So, you know...
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Chapter 5: What tactical changes did Donegal implement this season?
They didn't score a two-pointer in the last year's All-Ireland final. They'd put ever two on the board in the first couple of minutes yesterday. So there's other obvious areas of improvement there. But if you dominate the ball, and I said this the last time we were in with Joe, at the Kerry Donegal league game in Ballyshannon, I think Donegal only had two turnovers in the entire game.
So they are brilliant at holding on to the ball and actually depriving the opposition of oxygen. And that's a huge part of it too.
To build on that, their goal, the first goal that they scored, it was sequenced at three minutes. They held the ball for three minutes and that was a turnover, Dylan Ganey. And it showed maybe...
probably reflected how casual Kerry were in some respects Dylan Ganey goes to put a pass on his right foot which is closer to the player that challenges him he could have easily put it on his left foot he was passing it backwards he puts it on his right foot and Michael Langan and Zinn. And about 38 or 40 passes later, Conor O'Donnell is scything through.
So that's three minutes in one sequence that they don't have a ball. Max Campbell fists another one, his third point at one stage later in the half. That's a minute and a half of sequence of play where Kerry don't have the ball. And the last point from Finbar Rorty to make it 3.20. That's a two minutes and 15 seconds or something like that build-up
Another huge chunk of play when Kerry are just chasing and they're spinning round. They're not getting tackles in. They're a presence, but Donegal are putting the ball around. Conor O'Donnell has the ball five or six times in that build-up alone. So I'm sure after a while, a team goes cold when they've so little ball, they're so little, they become so disengaged at that point.
And Donegal's ability to hold on to the ball is reflective of your own team. At times, there was goals that Dublin created, you know. More than a decade ago, but I think even teams are even better now for their ability to hold on. They're getting so much, so much better and precise in possession that it's so hard to affect a turnover now and Donegal are proving that.
There's lots of interesting things to dig into, but I just kind of want to rip the plaster off on the Michael Murphy incident because it was such a big moment in the game.
There's only a point in it when that moment happens, and as much as Kerry can't bring it up and Jack O'Connor can't bring it up because it would seem very churlish to do so after you're absolutely hammered, but the game is completely different if he walks it. McGuinness might say, we have to be a little more conservative, we're a man down.
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Chapter 6: How did Michael Murphy's actions impact the game?
Literally, they have one man less, and in the modern game, the space could be exploited there. So I know it's kind of almost like... It seems like a stupid thing to say because it was such a big scoreline in the end, but it was a massive moment.
He had a very, very big influence afterwards. Obviously, there's a two-pointer he scores after that. There's another two-point free he scores after that. He scores the goal. He's out winning kickouts. He's involved several times in that movement for the goal, for that recycling. So a definite red card. It's closed fist. There's two closed fists. It appears there's two closed fists.
There's no doubt about it. The call is probably on the linesman, Conor Lane, he's close. They do consult and they decide yellow card. So the match officials make that decision together and there's no one that would dispute in hindsight. We're looking at the time, anyone that had a clear view of it would say, that's a red card.
Michael Murphy shouldn't have been on the pitch for the rest of the game.
And because he got a yellow card, he can't.
There's no, there's no reviewing that. That's a long time. There was a time when referees, there was a time back in the 2000s. It was a time back in the 2000s when referees would be asked, are you happy with that decision? And it came to All-Ireland Finals and there was a couple of Cork players in 2007 and 2009 where there was referees retrospectively asked, are you happy with that decision?
Sometimes they would say, no, no, I'm happy for that to be reviewed. And it would be reviewed and a player would be suspended. But for All-Ireland Finals, it was two Cork players. I think it was John Miskula and Noel O'Leary were both in the frame at the time. And the referee said, no, we're not going back on this decision. It was an all-Ireland final.
I don't think any referee wanted at that time to say in hindsight, yeah, I think that should be reviewed and risk a player missing an all-Ireland final. So there was a rule brought in afterwards to say that if a referee has made a decision, that decision cannot... A decision around something like that, that can't.
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Chapter 7: What are the key factors contributing to Kerry's performance decline?
A referee's word is final. If he's dealt with it, it's dealt with, and that's it. And that's where it has stood. Obviously, this incident may bring up some debate about it, but I think in general, I think in general, you would be leaving the door wide open to so many reviews about so many things if you do that. Obviously, this is a case in point, but...
It's probably the... I would think it's probably... the right decision in that so much would be open to review if you were to release it again.
Extremes don't make for good rules. Do you know what I mean?
Chapter 8: How does the new hooter rule affect game strategy?
This is a very extreme example. And it's this extreme example that you say, well, the rule doesn't work.
But in other sports, you're able to go back and review incidents after the fact if a yellow is given and it doesn't seem to throw up that many issues.
Yeah, just the way in the history of the GAA.
Sorry, I can already see. You made a 3 a.m. disciplinary hearing. It'll be off the charts. Yeah, I can see that actually.
The only thing is, Michael Murphy's going to have to be a very careful man for the rest of summer because he has done this before, pretending to tackle with your closed fists. He made contact with the head here, but he had made contact with his ribs previously.
It was probably a right guard even before. It could have been a potentially right guard before the head shot. What did you make of it? You can't really criticize them too strongly.
I'm always caught with these ones, but I've done a few of them myself where you're just trying to give a little sucker punch into the ribs for the man to drop the ball. But yeah, you're open to getting caught if you've closed fists and then you go for a second time around. I don't think anybody can debate that. It's not a red card.
I've said so many times Michael Murphy is either a genius at tackling or he's a terrible tackler you know I've said in columns he's like an octopus when he comes out you're transitioning up the pitch and he just fouls you and it slows you down transition wise or he's just a very bad tackler and yeah I think you know you just it's one of those things that
if he has as Conor mentioned got away with it then he will be the focus he will be in the shop window now for the rest of the season which he has to be careful of you know yeah certainly a big lightning rod today like if you just go and see what the people's commentary has been on social media over the last 24 hours or so but yeah it was a huge incident you know Conor Lane as you guys mentioned saw it seemed to be the one feeding into David Goff and
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