{"id":537081,"date":"2026-07-07T07:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537081\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T07:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T07:31:08","slug":"ger-brennan-says-pressure-is-on-standout-favourites-kerry-in-all-ireland-semi-final-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/537081\/","title":{"rendered":"Ger Brennan says pressure is on \u2018standout favourites\u2019 Kerry in All-Ireland semi-final \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dublin<\/a> manager Ger Brennan<\/a> insists all the pressure is on Kerry<\/a> in advance of Sunday\u2019s All-Ireland SFC semi-final between the counties at Croke Park.<\/p>\n

If there was one message Brennan seemed keen to articulate during Dublin\u2019s media event at Parnell Park on Monday, that was it. The Dubs were getting their yerras in first. <\/p>\n

Brennan, in his first year as Dublin boss, feels the experience of Kerry\u2019s management team means the Kingdom enter the game as strong favourites. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2023, the All-Ireland final, Dublin were probably favourites,\u201d said Brennan. \u201cOn this occasion, Kerry are certainly the standout favourites and all the pressure is on them, in terms of their manager and all the experience of their coaching staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a fledgling management group in a lot of ways, with a new squad and a new panel. There is not a whole lot of pressure on us going into this match. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just trying to ensure we give ourselves a chance to be there or thereabouts going down the home stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack O\u2019Connor, has he won five All-Irelands? He\u2019s in his third stint with Kerry. He\u2019s up there with Mick O\u2019Dwyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cCian O\u2019Neill has won multiple All-Irelands with Kerry. He was involved with Galway in two All-Ireland finals too. Then you have Kieran Donaghy who has gone back in having been above with Armagh. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience that they have and the medals and silverware they have brought about as a management team, it just takes a lot of pressure off us. We\u2019re only finding our feet at this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cKerry are defending champions. They\u2019re the first champions of the new rules because they are the aristocrats of Gaelic games. Dublin are pushing hard in the roll of honour, we\u2019ve a bit to go yet, we certainly will push hard again this weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a nice space to be in, we\u2019re fairly relaxed with the whole thing. We will give it a go at the weekend but Kerry have so much firepower and know-how and Shane Murphy has been incredible to the Kerry team this year. He\u2019s had a super season as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan highlighted the contribution of the Kerry goalkeeper a number of times on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been super,\u201d added Brennan. \u201cWatching back the league final this year where Donegal did particularly well on Shane Murphy in goal I think he\u2019s really stepped it up since that performance as well. His range of kicking, his option taking, he\u2019s quite calm and collected. <\/p>\n

\"GerGer Brennan has yet to win an All-Ireland medal as a manager. Photograph: Nick Elliott\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cFor a guy who I think he may have won a junior All-Ireland with Kerry in 2015, he came on to the senior panel in 2017 and in many ways he\u2019s been a bridesmaid for a long time but he stuck at it and now he\u2019s the one at the altar and making things happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, let\u2019s try to do something to try to sort him out as well because he\u2019s giving Kerry a massive platform. They really dominated against Tyrone. Tyrone, I think, only won three of Kerry\u2019s kick-outs, which is an incredible stat.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the injury front, Brennan is hopeful Se\u00e1n MacMahon can overcome the hamstring strain that forced him off during the quarter-final win over Galway.<\/p>\n

MacMahon would be seen as Dublin\u2019s defensive man-marker for David Clifford.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had a little nick in the hammer against Galway. It\u2019s something he\u2019s probably had on occasion before and the lads are working hard on Se\u00e1n, so we hope to name him,\u201d says Brennan.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did well on [Clifford in the past] and we hope he\u2019s going to do well on him Sunday as well. He won\u2019t lose too much fitness. Tactically, Se\u00e1n is quite astute, so he\u2019ll be fine that way once we can get him on to the pitch. Other than that, everyone else is going well, thankfully. <\/p>\n

\u201cEoin Murchan is pushing hard as well to try to get back. And Se\u00e1n Bugler trained away at the weekend. <\/p>\n

Nathan Doran has undergone surgery on an Achilles injury while Killian McGinnis has had an operation on a cruciate knee ligament tear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin manager Ger Brennan insists all the pressure is on Kerry in advance of Sunday\u2019s All-Ireland SFC semi-final…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6937,2179,110979,2181,61,60,180648,43],"class_list":["post-537081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-kerry-gaa","tag-dublin-gaa","tag-football-championship","tag-ger-brennan","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jack-o-connor","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537081","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=537081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}