{"id":539796,"date":"2026-07-08T20:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/539796\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T20:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T20:10:13","slug":"oconnor-responds-as-ger-brennan-mounts-pressure-on-kerry-ahead-of-all-ireland-semi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/539796\/","title":{"rendered":"O&#8217;Connor responds as Ger Brennan mounts pressure on Kerry ahead of All-Ireland semi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dublin boss Ger Bren\u00adnan insists all the pres\u00adsure is on Kerry and his coun\u00adter\u00adpart Jack O\u2019Con\u00adnor as the mind games kicked off ahead of Sunday\u2019s seis\u00admic All-Ire\u00adland semi-final between Gaelic foot\u00adball\u2019s two greatest rivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dublin face Kerry this Sunday at Croke Park as both sides look to build on impressive quarter-final wins over Galway and <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/2026\/06\/28\/sport\/gaa\/liverpool-star-watches-kerry-tyrone\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tyrone<\/a> respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Dubs, after a slow start to the year marred by Brennan\u2019s elongated suspension, look to be peaking at the right time, and have many believing that they are the team to beat, while Kerry, despite their excellence, haven\u2019t been up to their usual standards this year.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Untitled-design-2026-06-29T135203.260.jpg\" alt=\"galway all-ireland\" class=\"wp-image-1786312\"  \/>Dublin manager Ger Brennan and Galway manager P\u00e1draic Joyce. Pic: Seb Daly\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, for Dublin boss Brennan, he feels that the expectation and pressure is on the Kingdom this Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018In the 2023 All-Ire\u00adland final, Dub\u00adlin were the favour\u00adites,\u2019 Bren\u00adnan poin\u00adted out. \u2018On this occa\u00adsion, Kerry are the stand-out favour\u00adites and all the pres\u00adsure is on them, in terms of their man\u00adager and his coach\u00ading staff,\u2019 said Bren\u00adnan<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Jack O\u2019Con\u00adnor has won five All-Ire\u00adlands, he\u2019s up there with Mick O\u2019Dwyer. Cian O\u2019Neill has won mul\u00adtiple All-Ire\u00adlands, Kieran Don\u00adaghy has gone back hav\u00ading done it with Armagh.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"700\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Untitled-design-2026-06-15T121037.956.jpg\" alt=\"Ger Brennan\" class=\"wp-image-1781248\"  \/>Dublin manager Ger Brennan. Pic: Tyler Miller\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018The exper\u00adi\u00adence that they have and the medals and sil\u00adver\u00adware they have brought about as a man\u00adage\u00adment team, it just takes a lot of pres\u00adsure off us. We\u2019re only find\u00ading our feet and sim\u00adil\u00adarly are defend\u00ading cham\u00adpi\u00adons. We cer\u00adtainly will push hard this week\u00adend but it\u2019s a nice space to be in. We\u2019re fairly relaxed with the whole thing.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And instead of clapping back to those comments, Kerry boss Jack O\u2019Connor had a funny response to Brennan\u2019s claim. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2018Good man, Ger!\u2019 O\u2019Connor said. \u2018Sure, there\u2019s pressure on Kerry every day. There\u2019s always pressure on Kerry. Ger is playing the game, I presume.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s building up to be a mouth-watering clash this Sunday, Con O\u2019Callaghan vs <a href=\"https:\/\/evoke.ie\/2025\/11\/07\/news\/sport\/inside-david-cliffords-family-life\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Clifford<\/a>, Colm Basquel vs Joe O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The amount of attacking talent that\u2019s going to be on display is brilliant for fans. You can catch it on RT\u00c9 this Sunday, with throw-in at 4pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dublin boss Ger Bren\u00adnan insists all the pres\u00adsure is on Kerry and his coun\u00adter\u00adpart Jack O\u2019Con\u00adnor as the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-539796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539796","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=539796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}