{"id":251824,"date":"2026-01-18T23:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T23:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T23:34:13","slug":"dingle-captain-paul-geaney-knew-how-hard-st-brigids-would-fight-as-kerry-side-crowned-all-ireland-champions-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/251824\/","title":{"rendered":"Dingle captain Paul Geaney knew how hard St Brigid\u2019s would fight as Kerry side crowned All-Ireland champions \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

AIB All-Ireland Club SFC final<\/p>\n

Dingle (Kerry) 0-23 St Brigid\u2019s (Roscommon) 1-19 (after extra-time)<\/p>\n

\u2018Even for us\u2026 even for us\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Dingle manager Padraig O Corcorain did not need to finish that sentence.<\/p>\n

\"Dingle<\/a>\"Donegal<\/a><\/p>\n

Even for them, who had won both their Munster Final and All-Ireland semi-final in highly dramatic circumstances, this was almost beyond belief.<\/p>\n

A game they seemed to have won in normal time, then lost in extra time, then forced to a penalty shootout \u2013 then won\u2026 or had they?<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

Even when substitute Mikey Geaney\u2019s winning score went over, and the referee\u2019s whistle sparked delirious Dingle celebrations, their players and management spilling onto the pitch, it wasn\u2019t actually all over.<\/p>\n

Monaghan<\/a> official Martin McNally cleared everyone off the pitch and signalled a free-in, for defenders not moving out quickly enough at the kick-out.<\/p>\n

Amidst the chaos, Dingle captain Paul Geaney kept the coolest of heads.<\/p>\n

The advice of another Ulsterman, data analyst Colin Treanor, who has worked with Kerry<\/a>, remained in his brain, as he explained.<\/p>\n

\"DataTullysaran-native Data analyst Colin Trainor, had a massive influence on the last actions of this All-Ireland final. Picture: Mal McCann. <\/p>\n

Geaney was taking no chances, not risking that touching wood might somehow bring St Brigid\u2019s some good luck, so he blattered the free well wide into Hill 16:<\/p>\n

\u201cColin Trainor would be proud of me with that one. We\u2019ve had discussions about that, and he reckons that players don\u2019t take into account the probability of the cross-bars and stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve the game won, so why would you try and pad your stats, \u2018LeBron it\u2019?\u201d, he added with a smile.<\/p>\n

Even without that reference to LeBron James<\/a>, this final would have put basketball into your mind.<\/p>\n

Paul Geaney wasn\u2019t surprised in the slightest by that: \u201cThat\u2019s the nature\u2026. We\u2019ve played so many quality teams, that\u2019s the thing, you\u2019re playing against the county champions\u2026<\/p>\n

\"DingleDingle captain Paul Geaney (pictured after this year’s Munster Club Senior final) knew that it would be a long slog against a quality side like St Brigid’s. PICTURE: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile (Brendan Moran \/ SPORTSFILE\/SPORTSFILE) <\/p>\n

\u201cThey all have their own stories and their own journeys and they\u2019re not just going to pack it in\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not as easy as you start well, which we did today, and you go on and you stay on top. All these teams are champions. It\u2019s very difficult to win this thing\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was going to be the way of the game, ebbing and flowing. I felt that maybe when they missed that close enough free – I felt maybe we had the chance there. If that one went over, I think it was going to four [ahead for St Brigid\u2019s].<\/p>\n

Of course, there were misses by both sides.<\/p>\n

The winning of this was a collective effort, although Geaney hailed defender Tom O\u2019Sullivan, who kicked an amazing five points from play, including two to level matters deep into the second period of extra time:<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, when you get up, you don\u2019t execute, but we executed every single time we went up, which gave us a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Tom took the game by the scruff again and we saw the inside of his boot today,\u201d he said with a smile, referencing his team-mate\u2019s semi-final scoring heroics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TomCorner back Tom O’Sullivan (left) scored five points from play at Croke Park against St Brigid’s. PICTURE: Piaras \u00d3 M\u00eddheach\/Sportsfile (Piaras \u00d3 M\u00eddheach \/ SPORTSFILE) <\/p>\n

O\u2019Sullivan did so despite bereavement during the week: \u201cUnreal again today. An outrageous leader for us and a great player.<\/p>\n

\u201cA tough week for the O\u2019Sullivans and the Ryans there, their grandmother passed away. Our condolences to the family as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw it actually, and it\u2019s a true thing, that your county mates will be at your wedding, and it\u2019s your club mates that bury you. It\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting beside the skipper was Mark O\u2019Connor, given special dispensation to play by his Aussie Rules<\/a> club Geelong, and this victory for him \u201cmeans everything.<\/p>\n

\"MarkMark O’Connor was given special dispensation from his professional AFL club, the Geelong Cats, to fly back home to turn out for Dingle in this All-Ireland final. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually very strange to see a few Geelong faces in the crowd next to my family.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been 10 years since I\u2019ve played here and obviously never played here in the red and white so there\u2019s a lot of emotion coming in which wasn\u2019t easy to keep a lid on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means the world. As Paul said, the club is everything\u2026it is the Dingle boys that will be under the coffin someday. It just means the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have such a small population but it\u2019s a quality population. It was just great to see all those faces in the stand today. It means the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AIB All-Ireland Club SFC final Dingle (Kerry) 0-23 St Brigid\u2019s (Roscommon) 1-19 (after extra-time) \u2018Even for us\u2026 even…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6937,126018,121459,764,61,60,43,90225],"class_list":{"0":"post-251824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-kerry-gaa","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-all-ireland-final","11":"tag-croke-park","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-roscommon-gaa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}